


I'm a killer but I feel safe with you

by ThatsrightZoeyeyye



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Eye Gouging, Canon-atypical happiness, Falling In Love, Fictober, First Meetings, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, No Apocalypse, Non-Binary! Georgie Barker, Non-Binary! Melanie King, Other, Prompt Fic, Recovery, Slice of Life, but only mentioned, non binary character written by a non binary author, some of the early chapters are sad but they'll be alright, they get happiness because it's what they deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:47:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 26,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26746846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatsrightZoeyeyye/pseuds/ThatsrightZoeyeyye
Summary: 31 interactions between Melanie King and Georgie Barker, from the first to many years later1 chapter a day, written for Fictober 2020
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King
Comments: 52
Kudos: 33
Collections: Fictober20





	1. No, come back!

**Author's Note:**

> yes the title is song lyrics. i haven't actually read the rest of the song or listened to it but i am tired and im pretty sure people don't actually read titles (it's a scam by the government to make us miserable)  
> i have 8 prompts ready and will work to make sure it's all published on time. there might be delays, but there shouldn't, in theory  
> enjoy

When Andy had suggested investigating the wreckage of some old boat, somewhere off the coast in the north of Scotland, Melanie had been immediately excited. It had been a while since they had found anything worthwhile, and their audience was getting vocal about their disappointment.

They’d looked up stories of sightings on the internet and newspapers around the place, and they’d found enough to justify the trip. Peter, as always, complained about the cold, but they didn’t exactly have the budget to go somewhere warm in November.

Standing on what had once been the deck of a gigantic boat, however, Melanie had to admit that it was much colder than she had expected. The temperature had dropped suddenly, without warning, the minute they had stepped on the structure.

The wind, bruising cold, howled around them like voices in agony, and they could barely hear each other. Toni shouted something about making sure to remember what they said so they could cut the sound and record a voice over from the silence of their studio, and Andy cursed loud enough that they could hear.

Melanie’s hair flew violently around her, hitting her face and getting in her eyes and mouth. She liked the way it looked when her dark waves fell freely on her shoulders, only covered by one of their merch beanies, and she knew their followers appreciated it too, but she couldn’t help but curse loudly as she turned her head towards Andy and hair covered her face once again. They hadn’t found anything in the two hours they’d been there, which didn’t help the mood.

The wind sounded like shouts, like pleas for help. When Melanie concentrated a little, she could almost make out words. Andy didn’t hear it.

She walked to the end of the deck, ignoring Peter’s frustrated rant about his empty thermos. There was that voice again, and she couldn’t figure out whether or not she was imagining it.

Standing pressed against the rails, looking out at the endless sea, or where she thought it must be behind the thick fog surrounding her, she could almost forget her friends, standing twenty meters or so behind her.

There was a numb kind of peace in the loneliness of standing there in the fog. She could barely feel the cold anymore. She let go of the rails and let herself be moved by the wind, surrounding her in a gentle hold. She closed her eyes. In that moment, she felt like she might be able to stay forever.

The voice was back, louder this time. If Melanie focused hard enough, she could hear it calling out, shouts echoing in soft desperation in the wind. She could hear names, something like Peter, or maybe Lucas. The voice was pleading to be freed. From what, Melanie couldn’t understand.

She felt tears flow down her face before she registered the sadness. She wasn’t a crier, never had been, but her heart was clenching in her chest, making her breathing harder as the voice got louder, clearer.

The fog’s embrace was no longer comforting, instead pushing on her, trapping her. It was so lonely there. The voice called once more, and Melanie called back. She couldn’t tell if the voice heard her, her voice choking up as the emptiness of the place overtook her.

She felt a hand grab her arm and everything stopped. Andy was staring at her, concern and puzzlement plastered on her face as she took in the sight of her friend, sobbing, arms wrapped around herself.

The voice was gone, and the deck was silent, safe for the howl of the wind, no longer comforting, freezing cold again. Melanie took a step towards the rails again, looking out towards where she was sure someone had been, but there was no sign of anyone. The voice had left her.

“ **No** ,” she murmured, not having enough strength to shout, “ **come back!** ”

Her voice broke in her throat as she gripped the rails, leaning over it. Andy gripped her arm tighter, dragging her back to the others.

“What the fuck were you doing?” Peter called, “you were gone for almost twenty minutes, we thought you might have drowned.”

“We found some unsable stuff,” Toni said, “we can go now.”

Melanie nodded, keeping herself from looking back to where she was sure someone, or something, had been, and they packed up their things, glad to be finally leaving. She didn’t tell the others.

Soon, they were driving back to their hotel, a couple of hours from the coast. The warmth of the car was so different from what they’d felt outside that they all fell asleep, safe from Toni, ever the most energetic one, who offered to drive.

When Melanie woke up, it was to her phone buzzing in her hands to a call from an unknown number. She almost didn’t answer, but finally gave in, muttering a quiet ‘hello’ into the phone, her voice low and raspy with drowsiness.

“Hi,” the caller said, in a voice that Melanie was sure she would recognize immediately if she hadn’t been so tired, “is this Melanie King?”

She nodded, before realising that the person couldn’t see her over the phone and answering out loud.

“I’m Georgie Barker, host of the What The Ghost podcast, I don’t know if you’ve heard of me but-” the caller hesitated for a second, “-our shows have similar topics, and I was wondering if you’d be interested in-” a nervous intake of breath, “-in collaborating on a project.”

Melanie’s brain paused for a second as she suppressed a tired giggle of surprise and excitement.

“Yes, um, Georgie Barker, yes, I’ve heard of you,” she answered, “I’m familiar with your podcast.”

“Understatement of the century,” Toni muttered next to her, grinning slightly, and Melanie resisted the urge to punch her (playfully, sure, but she didn’t want a car crash). She didn’t particularly want Georgie fucking Barker to know she’d been a fan for years and had daydreamed about working with her.

“A collab sounds interesting,” she finally settled on saying, “I’d have to check with the others, but I’m sure none of them would be against it.”

“Great!” Georgie exclaimed, “I, um, I’ve got places to go to right now, is it alright with you if I contact you again in the next few days to arrange a meeting?”

“Yes,” Melanie said, “that would be wonderful.”

“Wonderful,” Georgie repeated, “well, goodbye then.”

“Have a great day!” Melanie exclaimed cheerfully, before realising it was already late in the evening and banging her head on the car window.

“Bye,” Georgie said again before hanging up.


	2. That's the easy part

They all caught a cold, which none of them was surprised about. They spent the next few days analysing the data they’d gathered, trying to do something with it. It wasn’t really Melanie’s strong suit, she usually handled the talking. Andy was the one who was good at data.

None of them had heard voices. Or if they did, none had mentioned it, so Melanie didn’t either.

She ended up sitting back and tuning out the conversation. She knew she shouldn’t, but she was tired, and sick, and grumpy, and she didn’t want to think about it.

She was thinking about excuses to leave the conversation - bathroom break? she’d been barely twenty minutes before. coffee run? there was a coffee machine in the kitchenette a few feet away - when her phone rang.

She picked up the call without checking the number, glad for the distraction, and was pleasantly surprised when she heard Georgie’s voice.

“I’ve been looking up some material that could work for both of our formats,” she was saying, “and I think I’ve found some pretty good stuff.”

“I didn’t think you’d find stuff this fast,” Melanie answered, “our formats are pretty different, there must not be a lot of compatible material out there that neither of us has already worked on.”

“Yeah,” Georgie sighed, “that’s the hard part. But I think I have good leads and I thought we could meet to talk about in person.”

“ **That’s the easy part** ,” Melanie said, unsure why.

There was a brief silence at the other end of the line.

“We could maybe meet and grab coffee somewhere and talk about it,” she said after a few seconds.

“That sounds good,” Georgie answered, “will your associates be there?”

Melanie looked over at her friends, who all shook their heads, unsurprisingly.

“I’m usually the one who does the meeting and talking,” she answered, “they handle the technical stuff, and I get to have coffee with people.”

“Cool,” Georgie answered, and there was silence.

“So,” she muttered after a few seconds, “are you free next Thursday?”

“Yep,” Melanie answered, “I’ll find a nice café and text you the address?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

There was silence again, and Melanie could hear Georgie sigh awkwardly from the other end of the line.

“Well, see you Thursday then,” she said.

“Yeah, bye.”

They hung up and Melanie sighed, smiling.

“Someone’s got a date,” Toni grinned from her chair.

“I swear to God Toni I will throw you out of the fucking window.”

Andi snorted.


	3. You did this?

Melanie had selected her favourite café. It was a nice, quiet place, with light blue, white and beige walls painted in slightly sloppy triangles, comforting in their imperfection, homey. The baristas were young, clumsy and always a little anxious, in an endearing way that reminded her of her days as a young, clumsy and angry barista. The manager, Lana, was nice, and was actually her ex girlfriend from high school. They never missed the chance to catch up.

Which was why, when Melanie dropped her coffee and poured it all over the floor, she spent more time talking (and lowkey flirting, out of habit) with her than actually cleaning her mess and remembering that Georgie was meant to be there in just a couple of minutes.

“ **You did this?** ” Georgie interrupted, a hint of a laugh in her voice.

Melanie turned to her, smiling, before looking down at the coffee and cream she was trying not to step in, then at her Lana, who was leaning on the mop with the remnants of a grin and the beginning of a confused yet gleeful expression. It was at that moment that Melanie realised that Lana thought that Georgie was her date.

She tried not to fear the repercussions of that assumption and instead turned to Georgie, raising an eyebrow.

“What happened to hello?” she asked with unfelt confidence, an easy grin plastered on her face with practiced nonchalance.

Georgie chuckled, rolling her eyes.

“Hello Ms King,” she said with mock pompousness, “one might wonder whomst could be at the origin of the lake of coffee pooled at your heavenly feet.”

“Aw, you think my feet are heavenly.”

“A common enough misconception,” Lana chimed in, “unfortunately Melanie here is demon.”

Melanie hit her with a towel in response and Lana laughed lightly.

“I have customers to take care of,” she said, handing Melanie the mop, “can I let you clean up?”

“Sure thing babe,” she answered, bowing exaggeratedly.

She realised Georgie was still standing there and turned to her, trying her best not to let her breath catch in her throat. She’d seen her Instagram pictures, although she had been careful not to leave any trace of her passage, but none really showed the strength and the energy that she exhuded.

Georgie adjusted the piercing under her lower lip with her tongue, probably a nervous habit, and shifted her weight from one leg to the other, hands still in her jacket.

“So,” she said finally, “do you want me to go get our orders while you clean up?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. I, um, Lana knows what I drink, tell her to put it on my tab.”

Georgie nodded and turned to the counter, before turning back to her hesitantly.

“Are you guys- um- are you guys dating?”

“Oh!” Melanie exclaimed, “oh, no no!”

“I’m sorry,” Georgie quickly stammered, “I didn’t want to assume, it’s just- you called her babe-”

“-I get why that’s confusing but, we’re just friends-”

“-sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed-”

“-it’s alright! We, uh, we actually dated in high school!”

“Oh! That’s- that’s cool,” Georgie breathed out, “I thought you were one of those straight girls who called their friends babe for a second there-”

Melanie snorted.

“I’m going to be honest with you, I’m low-key offended you thought I was straight, but yeah, I’m one of those lesbians who call their exes babe.”

“I don’t even call my partners babe while we’re dating,” Georgie said, before chuckling lightly, “I called a boyfriend babe ironically once and he looked so confused and low-key offended.”

“Was he a librarian or something?”

“No, he’s actually a researcher,” Georgie answered, “but he does have librarian vibes.”

“Sexy librarian?” Melanie asked with half a smile, wiggling an eyebrow.

“It’s really subjective, I’ve never seen him without a cardigan. But he does look really good in one of those long skirts.”

“Nice,” Melanie grinned, before looking down at the coffee on the floor - which, to her disappointment, had not magically disappeared during their conversation - and sighing.

Georgie clicked her tongue and looked towards the counter.

“Well, I’m going to get us coffee so we can get to work.”

“We do need to get that sweet sweet youtube money.”

“Spotify for me, Ms King,” Georgie sighed, “we aren’t all pretty enough to get subscribers on youtube.”

“Hey!” Melanie exclaimed, “you’re plenty pretty!”

It wasn’t exactly true. Pretty wasn’t really a word that applied to Georgie. Gorgeous would work, or maybe stunning, beautiful, breath-taking, handsome, magnificent, elegant, splendid, divine. Melanie stopped her train of thought. Georgie seemed satisfied enough at being called pretty, rolling her eyes with a small self-conscious smile and walking to the counter.


	4. That didn't stop you before

Soon enough, they were both sitting with their coffees, notebooks out, talking business. Georgie had indeed worked hard to find interesting material, and Melanie felt a little bad about her half-assed last minute research.

She’d been busy wrapping up the wreckage video with the others and had woken up at four that morning remembering she hadn’t planned anything for her meeting with Georgie, before cramming research until ten and falling back asleep until two in the afternoon. It was mostly unreadable and not very usable, but Georgie didn’t seem to mind, trying her best to make use of it, a kind smile never leaving her face.

In a couple of hours, they had almost everything they needed to get working. They’d settled on going to an abandoned church four hours away from London, where stories of sightings had been told.

“That would mean intruding in the house of God,” Melanie said gravely, knowing that Georgie, being atheist, wouldn’t be hurt by the joke.

“ **That didn’t stop you before** ,” Georgie chuckled.

Melanie frowned, confused, before remembering that she had, in fact, intruded in the house of God in the past. Looking back, she was surprised to realise that it would only be the second church she would investigate. And the first one had been so long ago.

“Hang on,” she said, “that was like eight years ago. Did you watch all my videos or something?”

At that, Georgie looked down.

“Wait,” Melanie breathed out, “did you?”

Georgie sighed exaggeratedly, staring at a wall very far away from Melanie’s gaze.

“I don’t want to be one of those people who call themselves someone’s biggest fan,” she said, grinning awkwardly as she tried to turn it into a joke to cover her embarrassment, “but I have been watching Ghost Hunt UK since the very beginning.”

“Seriously?” Melanie laughed, “we were so bad at the beginning, I can’t believe you stayed.”

“I even bought merch,” she added, looking like she regretted her words the moment they were out, “look, I just really love beanies.”

“We didn’t sell beanies until like last year,” Melanie grinned, “you absolutely have to wear it for the video.”

Georgie sighed again.

“Will you wear my merch then?” she asked lightly, “I can get you stuff for free.”

“Well,” Melanie started, looking away, “I might or might not have a What The Ghost hoodie.”

Georgie raised an eyebrow at that.

“It just looked really comfy alright,” Melanie whined, before smiling again, “why am I even embarrassed? You outed yourself as my biggest fan first, I can shamelessly admit that I binged your podcast a couple of years ago and kept listening ever since.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, it’s really good! And you have a really nice sounding voice.”

“Do I now,” Georgie murmured, voice low, wiggling her eyebrows, a smug half-smile at the corner of her lips.

“Listen,” Melanie sighed pointedly, holding a hand in the air in front of her, sounding very much like she wasn’t going to say anything after that, and indeed blowing air out of her nose loudly and folding her arms. If she was flustered, she didn’t let it show.

“So we break into a church, wearing What The Ghost hoodies and Ghost Hunt UK beanies,” Georgie laughed.

“We’ll be the sexiest duo in history,” Melanie nodded, frowning her eyebrows with fake seriousness to keep herself from giggling undignifyingly at Georgie’s beautiful smile and the way her eyes shone with mischief and happiness.

“If we don’t get at least one tumblr blog dedicated to our sexiness, we will have failed at the game of life,” Georgie added, and Melanie laughed with her.


	5. Unacceptable, try again

On the day of the shoot, Melanie was the most excited she had been in a while. If everything went well with the filming and production, they could release the video just a little over a month after the previous one, which was more than what their followers had been made to expect in the past few years. Maybe it would satisfy some of the grumpy, demanding ones.

They’d picked up Georgie at her place and Melanie took the middle seat, crammed between her and Andy in Toni’s old sedan. Andy and Peter, as expected, fell asleep in the first ten minutes.

Toni picked one of her old hard metal CDs and put the volume on low, as usual, which created the perfect atmosphere for Melanie to fall asleep. She had however, no window to lean against. She knew Andy wouldn’t mind if she leaned on her, but would make fun of her for a few weeks.

What kept her irrevocably awake, however, was the fear that she would fall asleep on Georgie. In the weeks they’d worked together, they’d gotten relatively close, and Melanie was pretty sure they were friends. But you don’t simply fall asleep on your maybe-friend’s shoulder for a four-hour car drive. It would be very embarrassing.

Georgie was moving her head to the rhythm of the music, staring out the window with a peaceful look. Her hands, fiddling with the sides of her phone case on her lap, knuckles pale from the tension, were the only sign that she was at least a little bit anxious.

Her legs were pulled to the side, as if she were trying to take as little place as possible, which seemed very out of character. Melanie couldn’t blame her, she was too. It was weird sitting with both legs down.

She did fall asleep in the end, head turning from one side of the headrest to the other to the twists and turns of the road. She woke up with a start as the metal music was suddenly raised to its maximum, as was Toni’s habit when they reached their destinations.

Andy, as usual, had slept through it, and Peter was mumbling half-awake complaints in the passenger seat. Georgie was smiling mischievously, obviously having been let in on the event, and Toni was staring at her from the rearview mirror, smirking.

Melanie breathed in deeply, trying to shake the last remnants of sleep from her head, and stretched out, nudging Andi’s shoulder in the process. Her neck hurt like hell.

“Did you sleep at all?” she asked Georgie, voice still low and croaky from sleep, trying to get her eyes used to the light.

Georgie simply shook her head.

“Afraid of Toni’s driving?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” she said with a grin, and Melanie chuckled sleepily.

“You can protect me if any murderous ghost wants to hurt me,” she said.

“I’ll be your knight in charming armour.”

“Not that y’all aren’t cute,” Toni called, “but we do have equipment to get out of the boot and a video to film.”

Georgie looked away, the corner of her grin turning slightly awkward, and Melanie clenched her jaw. Of course Toni would make it weird.

They walked up the hill to the church, the old cobblestone path half hidden by vegetation. Peter complained about tree branches the whole way up, huffing and puffing until Gerogie, who was already carrying more equipment than the rest of them, offered to take some from him.

When they finally reached the church, they set their bags down, taking large breaths and sighing dramatically.

“We have an intro to film,” Toni finally announced, taking her camera bag, “get yourselves ready.”

Melanie shrugged off her winter coat, shivering in the cold February wind but showing off her merch hoodie. She arranged her hair so that it fell on her shoulders just so and touched up her make-up. Georgie just stood there, seemingly unbothered by the cold, her cropped coily hair hidden in her Ghost Hunt UK beanie.

“You guys look perfect,” Andy said cheerfully, her words muffled by the scarf tied tightly around her neck and covering half of her face, “just stand over there. Mel, stop touching your hair. Do you have your words ready?”

“Yep,” Melanie said, reflexively. It was an intro, she’d done hundreds of those before.

“Um,” Georgie murmured next to her, “what should I do?”

“Just-” Melanie answered, frowning slightly in confusion, “I’ll do my intro, say something along the lines of ‘we have a guest here’ and turn to you and you can do your usual intro.”

Georgie nodded slowly, still looking unsure.

“And what do I do with my hands? My body?”

“Dance the macarena,” Peter chimed in, and Toni snorted.

“Don’t say things like that,” Georgie retorted, “I will unironically do it.”

“Just keep your hands in your pockets,” Melanie said, “it’s cold as balls here.”

“Let’s just start shooting and see what comes up,” Andy suggested, “we’ll make several takes anyway, we can edit stuff later.”

“Camera’s on,” Toni informed them, “just do your thing.”

Melanie arranged her hair once more, earning an eye roll from Andy off camera, and clapped her hands together.

“Good morning ghost enthusiasts, Melanie King here with a new episode of Ghost Hunt UK!” she exclaimed in her sing-songy youtube voice, “Today we’ll be investigating some interesting reports in this abandoned church in the middle of rural England. But before we get into that, let me bring your attention to our guest!”

She turned to Georgie, who hesitated for a second, before turning to the camera with a crooked attempt of a smile.

“Hello mothers and fuckers, I am What the Ghost, host of the Georgie podcast- no- fuck.”

Melanie snorted as Georgie let out a pained sigh and stared out into the distance.

“ **Unacceptable** ,” Andy laughed, “ **try again** .”

“This year’s blooper reel is going to be great,” Melanie smiled, and Georgie frowned at her in mock anger.


	6. That was impressive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a ridiculously short chapter but i was massively uninspired

When they were done with the intro, after many (many) painful attempts, they finally walked up to the doors. Toni swore loudly. They were held close with heavy metal chains and an even heavier rusty padlock. They had not prepared for it.

“The harder the lock, the cooler the ghosts,” Georgie simply said cheerfully, and Melanie vaguely remembered hearing the phrase in her podcast at least once.

It did not seem to satisfy Peter, who was already sighing loudly and taking out his phone, but Georgie simply opened her bag, grabbed a hairpin and a swiss army knife, and kneeled in front of the lock.

None of the others said a word. They had done vaguely illegal stuff before to get a video, of course, but none of them had learnt how to pick locks or expected sweet fun Georgie to have. It did not, however, change anything to the facts, which were that in ten minutes or so, sweet fun Georgie was putting the knife back in her backpack, with the padlock in one hand and the chains on the floor.

“ **That was impressive** ,” Melanie breathed out. She wished she could be cool enough to pick locks.

Georgie simply threw them a smile and pushed open the doors. A cloud of dust rushed out with a sigh, and the feeling of grandeur and emptiness was already setting in.

The church itself didn’t seem so big from the outside, but inside it felt gigantic. Rows and rows of benches lined up, the weight of their emptiness pressing on them. The ceiling was high, round arches of stone meeting in a blur of half-erased paintings, the glow of the halos almost faded, reflecting the shy rays of sun piercing through the thick coat of dust and spider webs covering the stained-glass windows.

They were silent for a while, looking around, trying to get a sense of the place, breathing a little too deep to combat the overwhelming sense of vastness of the place.

“Low-key creepy,” Georgie finally murmured, breaking the silence, “I never do on-site research, it’s pretty impressive.

“Well”, Toni said, “let’s get filming.”


	7. Yes I did, what about it

It was three more days before they were meant to meet for the podcast episode recording at Georgie’s, and Melanie had thought she wouldn’t hear from her the whole time.

She did, however, wake up the next morning to a message from Georgie that showed her sitting on her couch with a cat perched on the top of her head, staring at the phone suspiciously. “The Admiral can’t wait to meet you,” the caption said, and Melanie chuckled.

They texted pretty consistently for the next few days.

In the meantime, Melanie saw a nice picture on Instagram, went to the hairdresser’s without second-guessing her decision and got her hair cut until it reached just below her jaw and got the end dyed a nice, deep shade of blue. She liked the look.

She thought about regretting it, but in the end she did like the way it looked. It changed her face, but it made her look more fierce, and she spent quite some time posing in front of the mirror, grinning smugly at her reflection. She knew a strong portion of her fans would be upset, so she didn’t share a picture on social media. Not just yet. She would wait.

When Georgie opened her door two days later, holding her cat in her arms like a baby, the first thing she did was raise an eyebrow.

“Got a haircut?” she asked, a small smile resting at the corners of her mouth.

Melanie clenched her jaw a little, clenching her fists tighter in the pockets of her jacket. She reminded herself that she loved her new hair, that she didn’t care what other people thought, and that lashing out on them wouldn’t help.

“ **Yes I did, what about it?** ”

Georgie seemed to sense the edge in her voice, and her eyes softened.

“I love it,” she said, in a kind, slightly forced tone, and Melanie looked down, already regretting her temper.

“It looks really cool,” Georgie continued, “anyone who disagrees should get a new pair of eyes.”

There was a small silence, and Melanie forced an awkward smile, willing her fists to unclench. Georgie stepped out of the way, opening the door a little wider.

“Do come in,” she said cheerfully, “do you want to hold the cat?”

Melanie nodded and held out her arms as she walked past the threshold. Georgie pushed the door closed with her foot and gently placed the cat in her arms. He didn’t seem to mind the change, and settled against her chest, warm and soft, purring.

A small smile made its way on Melanie’s face.

“A baby,” she murmured, and Georgie let out a quiet, breezy laugh as she got closer, running a finger at the base of the cat’s neck.

“My stupid baby bastard child,” she cooed softly, “dumbass small idiot kiddo.”

They talked for some time, meaningless things said in almost whispers and light laughter. Melanie apologised for her temper. Georgie understood, forgave without hesitation, comforting and reassuring.

Melanie smiled wider, looking up at the same time as Georgie did. They held each other’s gaze for a second or two before looking down again. Melanie tried not to visibly pull away. She hadn’t let herself be seen so open in longer than she could remember. The Admiral’s breathing followed the rhythm of her own.

They stood there for some time in a comfortable silence, until the cat opened its eyes, let out a quiet meol and shifted until she let him go.

“Should we go get work done now?” Georgie whispered, sounding almost too loud in the silence of the hallway.

“Sure,” Melanie answered, and they walked to the small office/improvised recording room .  It looked messy, but in a way she knew must be organised in some way.

Recording a podcast was weird. Being aware that she couldn’t point to things and do vague hand gestures to be understood was unsettling, but Georgie brushed her failed attempts with patience, reassuring her that things were never easy in the beginning. No matter how many times they had to redo the same take, she never got upset.

“There’s material for a bloopers episode,” she laughed at Melanie’s most ridiculous fails, clicking some buttons on her computer with ever-patient ‘let’s do it again’s.

“It’s going to be a nine hour bloopers at this point,” Melanie grumbled, “make it a series and you’ve got money coming in.”

“I’ll have to buy you nice birthday presents with all the money you’re getting me,” Georgie chucked, “What The King: a Melanie asmr.”

“My voice is insufferable, nobody would want to listen to that shit.”

“Your voice is great,” Georgie frowned, “you have a cool person voice.”

Melanie said nothing, shrugging absentmindedly and looking away. She considered just getting up and leaving. Deleting all her videos. Getting rid of every trace of her voice on the internet. She hated it.

Georgie didn’t try to argue further. She probably understood self-hate. Or she didn’t like her voice at all and didn’t want to lie about it. Most likely.


	8. I'm not doing that again

Why they had advertised the release of their collaborated episodes on February 14th, they had no idea. They liked publishing important things on eventful days, because it was always nice to see that some people interrupted their Halloween celebrations in order to watch their yearly specials and the likes, and because it was almost like having a schedule that made sense.

The problem wasn’t on the date itself, but on the fact that February the fourteenth was, in fact, absurdly close, and there was no way Melanie and her team would be able to get all their research and editing done in a week and a half. Georgie seemed confident in her ability to release her own episode on time, but then again, all the research was done beforehand and she only had editing left.

Toni did enjoy referring to the release date as “Mel & Georgie’s date”, and it wasn’t that Melanie had anything against the idea of dating Georgie in itself (she didn’t particularly  _ like _ her like that, but it would take a fool to refuse a date from her), but she knew that the woman didn’t want to date her (and who would, really? Melanie was well aware that she was insufferable and annoying to be around).

Andy got in on the joke, of course she did, and it left Melanie with the terrible anxiety that Georgie would hear it somehow, that she would think Melanie had a crush on her, and that she would be so embarrassed and full of pity for her that she would simply never talk to her again.

With much caffeine and much sleep deprivation, they did, in the end, manage to get the episode finished and good on time. Melanie hated the whole process, full-body cringing at more moments than she thought acceptable for just forty minutes of video, but Andy just patted her shoulder with the usual “don’t worry Mel, it’s good”.

When February 14th rolled around, they were able to put the finishing touches and upload everything necessary to youtube with minimal delays (minimals not being null, as the wifi once again decided to get slow right when they needed it most).

Fifteen minutes before publishing time, Melanie was finally able to throw herself on her bed, carefully put her laptop on the mattress next to her and breathe out slowly.

Georgie and her had agreed to facetime ten minutes before and release at the same time, and the last five minutes dragged slowly, while Melanie scrolled mindlessly through comments on the GhostHuntUK hashtag on twitter and regretting her decision for every mean tweet. There weren’t that many, drowned in the excitement of most, but she could still fear the frustration and unfiltered anger boiling under the surface.

Then Georgie’s face appeared on her phone, cheerful smile and eyes shining with happiness, accompanied by a light buzzing slowly releasing the tension in Melanie hands.

She answered the call, setting her phone in front of her as Georgie waved at her on the screen.

“Excited?” she asked, an easy smile on her face, warm and comforting.

“Mostly exhausted,” Melanie sighed, “we had to cram a week’s worth of editing in like three days.  **I’m not doing that again** .”

“At least we do get to release our episodes on Valentine’s Day,” Georgie said, “there’s nothing more romantic than chasing ghosts in an abandoned church.”

“Ah, yes, the inherent homoeroticism of ghosts.”

“Nothing gayer than being enthusiastic about Halloween themes on straight people’s favourite day.”

“True, true,” Melanie smiled.

They kept talking, the conversation coming easily, keeping an eye on the time, growing nervous, until finally the last minute arrived.

“Ready?” Georgie asked,

“Not at all,” Melanie answered.

“Me neither,” Georgie smiled.

And they released their episodes.

“Well,”

“Well,”

“Now we wait,” Melanie muttered.

“I’m going to watch your video,” Georgie said, “gotta occupy myself.”

“Coolio neato,” Melanie answered, before frowning at her abysmal conversation skills, “huh, I hate myself. I’m going to listen to the podcast.”

Georgie chuckled, or maybe it was a giggle. She waved goodbye and ended the call. Melanie sighed.


	9. Will you look at this?

Around three in the morning that night, Melanie woke up with a start. A nightmare. It wasn't unusual, and the sense of dread holding her body in the dark felt more familiar than really upsetting.

Melanie was used to nightmares. She was used to waking up in the middle of the night, slightly out of breath, covered in cold sweat, her mind heavy with the kind of numb fear that always stayed at the edge of her mind, fed by monstrosities and horrors she was already forgetting, the memory slipping away the more she tried to reach for it.

She sighed heavily, rolling around until she could reach a pillow and hold it close, a little too aware of how big and empty her bed was. She was tired.

She tried to go back to sleep. Arranged her hair and her limbs, curled her body around a pillow, pressed under the blankets. Controlled her breathing, tried to remember the exercises she had once been taught to deal with her anger. She'd never been really good at it. 

She missed her father. It was easier to forget during the day, when there were always things to do and things to distract herself with, but in the middle of the night, there was no escape. Nothing else to think about, or rather, so much to think about that it always came back to it. Always to the crunching weight of loss and regrets pressing inside her chest. An easy target.

He hadn't been a particularly good father. She had resented him in her teenage years, hated the way he erased himself behind his wife's rules, muttering sheepish "listen to your mother"s, refusing to look her in the eyes, refusing to stand up for himself, shrugging at every injustice she tried to fight.

They'd gotten slightly closer, after her death. He had gifted her her first motorcycle, saying something about how her mum would be disappointed from heaven, and Melanie had refrained from muttering something about hell and given him a second slice of cake, the first he'd been allowed in years.

He had always been supportive of her sexuality, in the cautious way of a man who wasn’t sure what it meant, what it involved, what he was supposed to say and not say. He had never asked about her girlfriends, in the same way he never asked about boyfriends before, keeping himself behind the line they’d tucked neatly between them. He was gentle, caring, conscious of the inevitability of the distance between them and glad to have what he had.

When his health had declined, she'd sent him to a care home. She'd visited as often as she could, or she pretended she did. It wasn't easy, balancing thankless jobs and trying to start a youtube channel with associates who weren't too fond of compromises and stubborn in ways she pretended she wasn't. They didn’t talk much when she did come, just sat in front of the TV, exchanging uninteresting news about their uninteresting lives.

And then he'd died. She had gotten a phone, been told that the care home had burnt down. They said he'd died of fire inhalation, that they were sure it had been quick, that he hadn't been conscious by the time the fire had reached him, most probably.

And it was over. He was gone. She hadn’t visited in months, always making up excuses, feeling guilty about it, but never enough to make herself stop.

She thought about the way things could have been if she’d made an effort. If she’d tried to get more involved in his life, if she’d moved in with him and taken care of him instead of sending him away, if she’d shared more, cultivated the link. If she hadn’t overestimated the time they had left.

She had loved him, out of habit maybe, but she had. And he had loved her, in his own quiet way.

She didn’t cry. She never really did. Instead, she lied awake, in the middle of the night, mourning the way things could have been.

She reached a point where she was pretty sure she wouldn’t sleep for a while, and if she had to be sad, she might as well put on some sad music. It was almost four by the time she found a good playlist, and her eyes had adjusted to the light of her screen.

Among her many notifications, she noticed one from Georgie. She considered ignoring it, just like she did all the others, but she decided to look anyway. Talking to Georgie, sometime during the past few weeks, had become comforting. There was something about the woman, about her calm, her sense of humour, the way talking to her came in waves, round and smooth and steady, that made it easy to settle in her rhythm.

“ **Will you look at this??** ” said the message.

It came with several images. They were screenshots, which Melanie took some time to understand, her brain running slow from exhaustion. They showed both of their followers count on their various social media and publishing platforms, before they announced their collaboration, before they posted it, and two hours after.

The numbers were so overwhelming that Melanie had to put her phone down for a bit. She had never really thought that she would quite reach that number of followers on youtube, or anywhere for that matter, and certainly not overnight.

She looked at the numbers again. It had been over ten hours since they’d posted the episodes, and the curve kept on growing, so ridiculously quickly that she was starting to wonder if she was really awake (which she knew meant that she was, but there was always room for doubt in her mind).

She took screenshots and sent them to Georgie with a quick “oh my god???”. She wasn’t expecting an answer so early in the morning, but as she made to turn off her phone, she saw Georgie’s icon show up on the screen, indicating that she was typing.

Melanie buried the side of her face into her pillow, waiting as the three dots danced at the bottom of the screen, a small smile curling the corners of her mouth.

“we need to collab more often,” she finally read, “we are quite a successful duo”

“The additional money will certainly make up for having to deal with my presence,” Melanie sent back, and she barely had to wait a few seconds before Georgie sent back “your presence is quite enjoyable, even without the money” followed by “wanna meet up today?”

Melanie smiled wider. She had missed having a friend.

“3 pm @ our usual café?”

“sure,” Georgie answered, so quickly that Melanie wondered if she had even stopped to think about it, “we should probably get some sleep now.”

“We should.”

They texted for the better part of the next hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't mean to make it sad but i don't control the sad


	10. All I ever wanted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: technically, the memes quoted probably didn't exist yet when this scene took place, but this is fanfiction, there are bigger issues than anachronisms in my very humble opinion

By the time Melanie reached the café, Georgie was sitting at their usual table, two coffees in front of her, head resting against the wall and eyes half closed. She looked very tired.

When she saw Melanie, she looked up at her and smiled, a smile that looked fond and happy and comfortable in a way that Melanie hadn’t seen addressed to her in a very long time. She smiled back, utterly content with her life, ignoring the way exhaustion was dulling the edge of her senses, and sat down across from Georgie.

“So we’re famous now,” she whispered, because she didn’t trust herself to speak loud without her vocal chords giving up.

“Just you wait, soon we’ll have paparazzis coming for us left and right,” Georgie chuckled.

“We’ll have to run from the spotlight and live in the woods.”

Georgie’s eyes lit up as she smiled, holding her coffee close to her chest.

“Living in a little cottage in the woods with you and no one to bother us doesn’t sound too bad, to be honest.”

Melanie smiled wider, looking away, not trusting herself not to blush if she looked at Georgie.

“Will you let me have an army of cats?”

“Of course! We’ll be bringing the Admiral, he’ll need many friends.”

“What about chickens?”

“Only we give them old French women names.”

“Interesting,” Melanie chuckled, “what are you thinking?”

“Claudette, Henriette, Josette, Marianne, Jeannine… What about goats?”

“ **All I ever wanted!** We can make cheese.”

Georgie hummed in agreement and sipped her coffee slowly, smiling.

“We might just have to go live in the woods right now and not wait for the paparazzis to force us out of London,” Georgie murmured, so low Melanie wondered if she was meant to have heard it.

“I’m sure we can find good ghosts in the woods,” she answered, “we’ll have enough with monsters under the bed and creatures coming for our nice homemade loaves of bread.”

“No cishets in the forest,” Georgie whispered comically, and Melanie laughed.

“No gender in the forest, forest has moved beyond the need for gender” she hummed, before her brain, slowed by her exhaustion, caught up with her words and kindly reminded her that Georgie very much thought she was a cisgender woman.

She froze for a moment, wondering if she should play it off as a joke, find a way to make it sound cis, or come out. It might be a good time as any to tell someone, for the very first time, that she was in fact non-binary. Worst scenario, she lost the friend she cared about the most, the whole internet found out and she was bullied out of everything in her life. Best scenario, at least she would be out to  _ someone _ .

She was interrupted in her slowly ascending panic by Georgie’s voice humming in agreement.

“The woods are a very good gender neutral bathroom,” she said, trying to sound casual, a slight edge in her voice translating her own hesitation.

Melanie nodded, her smile coming back.

“So like,” she started, trying to find a way to word her interrogations.

“So I’m non-binary,” Georgie said, with slightly forced confidence.

“Oh,” Melanie murmured, “well, I am too.”

Georgie smiled, looking about as relieved as Melanie felt, and they said nothing a bit, just enjoying the comfort of being in the company of someone like herself.

“So what are your pronouns?” Georgie asked after a little while, breaking the silence.

Melanie sighed, frowning again.

“I’m not sure,” she answered, “I know she/her is fine, or maybe it’s just fine out of habit? I don’t know. I’ve never actually, um-” she took a deep breath, then sighed again, “I’ve never talked about it with anyone before. I think I’d like to try they/them pronouns.”

Georgie’s smile turned gentle, and she nodded.

“That’s great. I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me,” she said.

“I almost didn’t,” Melanie exclaimed, before wincing at the volume of her own voice and murmuring, “you were making cis people jokes, I thought coming out wouldn’t be too bad.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Georgie nodded, “but yeah, it feels nice knowing some non binary people not strictly on the internet.”

Melanie nodded.

“So, um, what are your pronouns?” she finally remembered to ask.

“The classics,” she answered, “I’m not really out to anyone on my official social media yet, so I use she/her for those, and it’s fine because I like them. But I also use they/them and he/him.”

“That’s very cool,” Melanie said, “I don’t think I’m ready to be out to the entire world yet either.”

“Very understandable.”

They were interrupted by Lana, who came by to ask if they wanted cake. They did, in fact, want cake, and were glad to have an excuse to stay longer.

“I’ve never actually had a conversation with a non-binary person before,” Melanie said once Lana was gone.

“Not even on the internet?”

“All the social media I use link back to my youtube channel, everyone could potentially find out, I don’t think I’m ready to risk it.”

“You should have a secret tumblr.”

“Do you have a secret tumblr?” Melanie grinned.

“Yep,” Georgie answered with a smile, “I can shamelessly be queer on main.”

“I should do that.”

“You should.”

There was a silence as they both laughed quietly.

“How many jokes about cis people do you think we can hide in our next collab?” Melanie asked, after Lana had gone back and brought their slices of cake.

“We’ll see,” Georgie grinned, “the one who sneaks in the most queer jokes that cishets won’t get has to get the other coffee.”

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i didn't mean to make them non binary. i thought about it, but then i didn't. but Then, oh Then, i found out that melanie and georgie's voice actors respectively use she/they and she/he/they pronouns and i went,, it's free real estate. anyway as a non binary person dating an other non binary person i think we deserve more rep so here it is. if you don't like it, so be it, i really don't care. "but melanie and georgie were only refered to with she/her pronouns uwu" yes, i am aware, but the interesting thing about using multiple sets of pronons and/or not being out to certain people means that you can be nby and have people not be aware (wild, i know)  
> i think we've all agreed that georgie is a butch anyway? i think that happened? or maybe i just haven't interracted with the straight part of the fandom? (i know they exist, i have seen how much michael/sasha (????) fics there are) so i might as well make her nby  
> also i use they/he/she pronouns so i might just fuck around and make georgie everything i want to be in the next chapters. happy for example


	11. I told you so

In between all the seeing a woman tear off her own skin, being stabbed by a ghost, becoming a meme, getting shot by another ghost, getting trapped by an evil voyeur man in a creepy institute, saving the world a couple of times, isolating herself from her untrustworthy colleagues and befriending a door, there wasn’t much time for Melanie to think about the rest of the world.

She missed her friends, sometimes. Losing Toni, Andy and Peter had been slow enough that she’d been ready for it. It had started many years ago, really, when you thought about it, when Ghost Hunt UK had started to be successful and they had just kept the group together, each one of them knowing they wouldn’t keep in touch without it but never really voicing it.

After the Cambridge Military Hospital, after she’d gone to the Magnus Institute (the Magnus fucking Institute!), and especially after the train graveyard, it had just ended. There had never been any official talk, just a point where she couldn’t talk to the others without them frowning and looking away like they were middle schoolers who had just been gossiping about her, and they’d stopped planning for new videos, and she’d just left.

She had gone to India without telling them, got back without telling them about it, and given her statement to Martin, because Jon was mysteriously absent. She envied the version of her that day. Even if she’d just gotten shot by a ghost thousands of kilometres away from her home by a ghost, she’d been so ignorant to it all.

She wondered what would have happened, if she hadn’t gone back to the Institute, or if she had declined Elias’ offer.

Maybe she would have gone to Georgie. She had left them on read when they had asked her about the train graveyard, and Melanie had been so  _ angry _ about everything that she had mistaken their worry for another attempt at humiliating her.

She hadn’t contacted them again, after that. She wondered sometimes how they were doing, if they were okay, if they missed her. But at some point the anger had overtaken her completely, and she’d stopped thinking, letting herself be fueled by the rage.

And then Jon and Basira took the bullet out of her leg, and she almost stopped feeling altogether.

She stayed in bed for a good few days, alternating between sleeping and scrolling through her phone aimlessly. Basira brought her food, without a word, and it was honestly more than Melanie had come to expect from her. She accepted it silently. She knew a “thank you” would only get her a glare.

She spent some time catching up with Georgie’s life on social media. She didn’t talk to them, but she looked at the pictures, read their tweets and chuckled silently, holding back sobs, wondering what life could have been like if none of this had happened and she had just retweeted it all with stupid comments, carefree.

There were comments, the first few months, from people who asked Georgie if she knew how Melanie was. She had gone silent on all social media platforms after the train graveyard. Georgie had answered some comments with “i don’t know, sorry”s and “i’ll let you know when i have news”s and “i’m sure she’s alright”s.

Melanie didn’t cry. She never did. She wished she could be angry at herself, angry at the world, angry at Jon and Elias and the Slaughter and the Fears and everyone whose insignificant actions had unknowingly tilted her life towards all of it. She wished she could let the anger consume her like it did before, but it didn’t work anymore.

She missed the anger. She missed the way it encouraged her rage and made her life make sense, even if she didn’t like it. She hated it, but she did with a burning passion that felt almost like purpose. When she just let it take over her, nothing else had to count.

She missed it.

She also missed Georgie.

She started at his icon on Instagram, showing that he was active, the picture smiling at her with a wink and a peace sign, tongue out and teeth showing. She missed that smile.

She pressed the call button before she could let herself regret it, turned off the camera and let herself fall on the pillows, putting her phone down next to her head.

She breathed in, slowly, breathed out slower, waiting, unsure what she would say when Georgie answered. If he did. She wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.

“Melanie?” their voice finally came, sounding hesitant and scared and a little hopeful.

“Hi,” Melanie whispered back, and she sighed, “it’s been a while.”

“You could say that,” came Georgie’s answer. There wasn’t any anger in his voice, no reproach, and Melanie wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not.

“So Jon told me you knew him,” she ended up saying, “well he’s my boss now.”

“Jon is your boss,” Georgie said, deadpan, “as in Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, who got kidnapped by plastic clown moisturizer mannequins and fire ladies made of wax and all that bullshit.”

“That’s the one,” Melanie chucked sadly, “although Jude didn’t exactly kidnap him, she just burnt his hand, but yeah. I didn’t get kidnapped by anyone though, but I did get shot by a ghost and attacked by an army of flesh.”

“What,” Georgie whispered breathily, sounding confused and concerned and so, so tired.

“But well it’s all good now,” Melanie continued, “the ghost bullet got me controlled by an evil entity called the Slaughter, and I slaughtered the army of flesh pretty easily, and Jon got the ghost bullet out of my leg, so now I don’t have a will to live but I do miss you.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah,” Melanie murmured, and she sighed, “I’m sorry about the whole, you know, ghosting you for a year.”

“It’s fine,” Georgie answered, and they both knew it wasn’t, “I just- I thought you were dead.”

“I meant to talk to you, but it just- everything was going wrong, and nothing make sense, and it just didn’t just right to get you involved in it and put you in danger.”

There was silence at the end of the line, and Melanie felt her throat tighten. That was it. That was the moment Georgie would tell her he hated her and leave her alone forever. It would be deserved. Melanie was too tired to be bitter about it.

“Jon didn’t think of that,” Georgie said instead, “he called me out of nowhere and stayed at my place for a bit looking like he’d just gone through something, which, fair, he was being framed for murder after all, but still, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“The Admiral was glad to see him, so it’s fine.”

“Still can’t believe Jonathan fucking Sims was the sexy librarian all along.”

Georgie’s laugh burst out, bubbly and joyful and carefree, and Melanie thought she might just start crying, right there, because she’d missed him and his laughter so much.

“I’d forgotten about this,” he giggled, “do you still think the title fits him”

“He wears cardigans all the time!”

“ **I told you so** ,” Georgie retorted, before sighing happily, “I miss those days.”

“Yeah,” Melanie whispered, “I miss it too. I’ve missed you.”

Georgie hummed lightly, and Melanie sighed.

“For what it’s worth,” she murmured, “I really am sorry.”

“I get it, I just- why now? After a year of silence? What changed?”

“Well Jon performed an impromptu surgery on my leg to remove the ghost bullet that controlled me by fueling my anger so, you know.”

“You’re phrasing it weird on purpose.”

Melanie laughed, and she couldn’t remember how long it had been since the last time.

“Maybe, but it’s still all true.”

“I should go to sleep,” Georgie murmured tiredly, it is one in the morning after all.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry-”

“I swear it was three in the afternoon like, an hour ago.”

Georgie chuckled slowly.

“It’s alright, I just want to be sure you won’t disappear again for a year while I’m asleep. If this is the last I hear from you, I can and will stay up as long as you need.”

Melanie closed her eyes and smiled a little. It was nice to have someone who cared, even after everything.

“I’d like to try and have a normal life now,” she said, “as normal as I can while I’m bound to the Beholding.”

“One day it’ll be over,” Georgie said, softly, and the way she said it almost made Melanie believe it was true, “in the meantime, I’d like to see you a bit. What do you say about coffee?”

“It’s been a while, and I have quite a bunch of money now since I live at the Institute and don’t spend any money ever,” Melanie answered, “what do you think about a fancy restaurant? My treat, to make up for the ghosting.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll go and sleep now.”

“Sweet dreams,” Melanie whispered, “sleep tight.”

There was a tired hum of acknowledgement at the other end of the line, then Georgie hung up. Melanie fell asleep quickly after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so act 2 has started. i promise they get a happy ending once they get past the events of s4. for personal reasons i will completely ignore the existence of s5


	12. Watch me

When Melanie woke up, sometime early in the afternoon, it was to a cold plate of steak and broccoli from Basira and a series of memes from Georgie.

They smiled, ignoring the food and immediately looking for funny memes to send back to their friend. They hadn’t done that in a while, most of their internet presence focused on anger at everything wrong with the world. Without the actual anger, it was mostly exhausting.

They breathed in and out, deeply, trying to gather up some strength, and eventually they sat up, pushed their legs out of bed and stood up, one step at a time. The temptation to lay back down immediately was strong, but they resisted, instead walking further away from the bed.

There were no windows underground, and Melanie didn’t think they could quite bear turning on the lights. They’d gotten used to living in the dark, pacing angrily in the dark, then lying in the dark, eating in the dark, only ever really looking at their phone.

They didn’t get to make a decision, however, as a bright pink door appeared on the wall and opened, revealing a poorly lit corridor, light reflecting in the endless row of mirrors covering the walls. Helen leaned on the threshold, a small, content smile on her face looking immense features twisted in a quite indescribable way.

“So someone’s getting better,” she said, cheerful.

“I’m trying,” Melanie answered in a weak whisper, and Helen laughed lightly, slightly too loud.

“Delightful!” she exclaimed, “I was getting quite worried about you. You used to be more…” she breathed in deeply, breathed out in a thoughtful hum, “lively,” she eventually settled on, staring at her steadily.

“On a murderous rampage, you mean.”

“Exactly! It was very entertaining.”

Melanie had gotten along with Helen in the past few months, after the Flesh. She encouraged them, reacting to their anger with delighted giggles and fun quips. She had, in a way, been a friend. Melanie wasn’t quite sure what to think anymore.

“Not that I don’t value your company,” they said, “but could I ask for a favour?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Helen exclaimed, “have anyone to kill?”

Melanie laughed silently, bitterly.

“Sorry to disappoint,” they answered, “I’m meeting a friend for dinner, I would like to take a shower first. Can you take me to my apartment? I don’t feel like facing Jon or anyone else right now.”

“Jon is getting quite boring,” Helen nodded gravely, “what with all the self-deprecation and lovesick sighs because he’s a monster and he misses Martin or whatever.”

Melanie didn’t feel the usual surge of rage at the mention of Jon. Just bitterness and lingering despisal.

“Yeah,” they breathed out.

“Well,” Helen smiled, stepping out of the threshold, “if you’ll just follow me, I’ll take you directly to your bathroom. Want me to get you clean clothes?”

“You’re already doing more than enough, Helen,” Melanie said warmly, stepping into the corridor, “I think I’d like to pick my outfit myself.”

“Going on a date?”

“No,” Melanie murmured, and they wondered if they wished it were a date, in the same way they’d thought before it all, captivated by Georgie’s strength and kindness and relentless enthusiasm and gentleness.

“Too bad,” Helen said, looking disappointed.

She opened a door, and Melanie stepped out into her bathroom, cold and empty. When they turned back to thank Helen, she was already gone.

They showered, taking the time to let the warm water and soap penetrate their skin properly. Long showers might not be good for the environment or the bills, but they hadn’t showered in at least a week, and they supposed they deserved a treat.

Their hair had grown back to its old length, black waves falling down to their elbows. They took the time to do the entire routine, carefully using every product before pulling it all in an old t-shirt, the age old habit comforting in its own way.

They picked their favourite dark blue suit jacket that they hadn’t worn in ages, paired it with matching dress trousers and a white shirt, and looked at their reflexion in the mirror. A small smile made its way to their face at the sight. They looked quite undeniably hot.

An alarm rang on their phone, indicating that they only had twenty minutes left before Georgie came to pick them up. They took the time to moisturise their face, decided against makeup, before caving in and choosing their favourite black lipstick, hoping it wouldn’t go against the restaurant’s dress code.

Eventually, Georgie showed up and Melanie climbed in her car. Her hair was slightly shorter than it was the last time they’d met, half an inch of coils on her head. Her smile was still the same, warm and comforting, always with a hint of mischief, and the lines of laughter around her eyes had stayed, unchanged in barely over a year.

“Where to, Ms King?” she asked lightly, and Melanie found herself smiling wider. Georgie noticed, and she smiled more softly, brushing a strand of their hair behind their ear.

“I don’t know the exact address,” they said, “is it alright if I give you directions from Maps?”

Georgie nodded and looked back towards the road, turning on the engine.

“Nice suit, by the way,” she muttered as she made to leave the parking spot.

Melanie smiled, taking in Georgie’s own suit, light grey with green and blue flowers embroidered all over.

“You’re looking quite dashing yourself,” they said.

“We’re going to steal the show there,” Georgie said, “let’s hope no one’s going to propose to anyone, everyone will be looking at us instead of them.”

Melanie laughed lightly, almost missing a turn on Maps.

There was, in fact, a proposal, sometime while they were choosing desert. No one ended up paying attention to them (which, they conceded, might have been predictable) while a rich woman in a bright green dress broke down crying in front of a quite bland looking man.

“With all due respect,” Melanie whispered to Georgie, “I really don’t understand why people are attracted to men.”

Georgie chuckled lightly, eyes back on the menu.

“Some men are okay,” she hummed.

“Agree to disagree,” Melanie said, and Georgie snorted.

They were interrupted by the waiter coming to take their order, but he was gone soon enough.

“You can’t eat an entire cheese plate by yourself,” Georgie said, which Melanie thought was quite preposterous to say for someone who had taken the chocolate fondant with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.

“Watch me,” they answered, leaning in to stare at Georgie challengingly.

They did, in fact, end up eating the entire cheese plate, with a little help and against a spoonful of fondant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on second thoughts, i want to specify that melanie's joke about attraction to men isn't meant to invalidate georgie (and everyone else's) attraction to men! i had planned for them to have a talk about it in which melanie made it clear that she isn't biphobic but i am small brained and i forgot. will try to include it in later chapters. much love for all the people out there who are attracted to men, in a gay way, straight way, bi way, pan way, literally any way. it's not something to be ashamed of or disappointed about. there are many men out there who are worth loving, and love is great! it's beautiful! @bi people, embracing your love for men is beautiful, you don't have to apoligise for it, even as a joke. loving women and nby people is pretty neat, but loving men is also good  
> \- from your local lesbian, with love


	13. I missed this

The last time Melanie had gone to Lana’s coffee shop had been before going to India. It had been barely over a year, but it felt like decades.

The last time she had gone, she knew nothing of Fears and rituals. She had been unsettled by her two encounters with the supernatural, but she felt naive curiosity more than fear. She didn’t think she could be in any real danger, back then, if she just did her research properly. Thinking back on it, she wondered how she let herself be so stupid.

When she got back to the coffee shop, it was to a changed decor and new employees. The manager, who Melanie vaguely remembered as a new waitress the last time, informed her that Lana had graduated from that online teaching school she had mentioned a few times, and had left the coffee shop to teach full time at the end of her training period a few weeks earlier.

Melanie sighed, trying not to be sad about it, and struggled to remember the name of her order. Before it all, she came so often she never needed to specify it, just placing a five pound bill on the counter and walking to her usual table with a wink and a peace sign. It had felt like home.

Eventually, Georgie walked in, got his own coffee and sat down across from her. If it weren’t for the weight of everything that had happened constantly pressing on Melanie’s chest, she could almost pretend she was back in those times, when her biggest worries were video ideas and if she could afford to replace her broken washing machine that month. It seemed so trivial, after everything.

She listened to Georgie talk, catching up with everything that had happened in his life, letting his voice soothe her, laughing to his jokes.

“ **I missed this** ,” she muttered after a while, and Georgie hummed in agreement while sipping his coffee, his eyes softening.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, and he sounded so honest that Melanie didn’t let herself doubt it.

“You won’t leave again, right?”

Melanie shook her head. She didn’t want to leave again.


	14. You better leave now

It was all going fine, all things considered, if Melanie managed not to think about the fact that she worked for the Magnus Institute, stopping rituals and saving the world and all, and could, in fact, never quit.

But then, that Breekon thing had brought that coffin that whined in the rain and scratched and begged and pleaded, so loud that Melanie could almost hear it from anywhere in the Institute, its low, ever-present hum just without reach of her ears, always. It was much louder when she approached Jon’s office, which gave her one more reason to stay away.

She did, however, decide to talk to him, just once, but of course (of fucking course), the man was trying to cut a finger off when she walked in. Without thinking, she brought him to Helen, who led him to Jared Hopworth, and she walked away, as far away as she could get.

She could feel her heart beat loudly in her chest, deep and strong and just on the wrong side of slow as she walked to the breakroom, trying to keep the panic at bay as memories of the Flesh flooded back. She thought of all the other entities, all the other avatars that were unaccounted for, all the horrors that could attack them.

She gripped the edges of the sink tightly, willing herself to snap out of it, eyes shut so tight it hurt, rocking her body back and forth, focusing all her attention on her breathing. Time passed, she couldn’t tell how much. Never had been able to in these moments. Eventually, she calmed down enough to pour herself a glass of water and throw it down her throat, feeling it force its way down, painfully.

She decided to go for a walk, offering a smile to Rosie as she passed, glad to see that she didn’t flinch when she saw her anymore. Six months wasn’t a very long time to get over seeing someone slash through monstrous flesh creatures with a knife, covered in blood and other arguably human bits.

Her jaw clenched as she was reminded, once more, of the way her life was.

Rosie waved for her to come with a tentative smile.

“Someone just asked to see you,” she said in her sweet, comforting voice, “I sent Carl from Storage to look for you, she went to the bathroom in the meantime, I told her you’d meet her here.”

Melanie frowned, thinking of who could possibly come to the Institute for her, while Rosie took out her phone, probably to text Carl to stop his search. Melanie briefly remembered having met a Carl before, but couldn’t remember his face. She figured he could remember hers, if he’d seen her covered in blood.

A door opened on her left and she turned to see Georgie walk out of the bathroom. Of course it would be Georgie. They were her only friend now, the only person she could trust.

A wave of panic crashed into her more at the sight of them in these walls. They’d had to change the wallpapers and floors down at the Archives, and she could still detect a faint smell of blood if she concentrated enough, though she couldn’t tell if it was just her brain mixing up present and memory.

Georgie stood there, hands in their pockets and a small, relaxed smile on their face, like they weren’t in danger, like by just standing there they hadn’t signed to die, like there weren’t any horrors that could barge through the entrance any minute and plunge twisted limbs and burning hands and hungry worms through their chest.

Melanie felt a shudder run through her body and grabbed Georgie’s hand, pulling them outside, away from it all, ignoring their questions and half-running until they’d gone all the way around the block and Melanie was just out of breath, eyes wide and panicked and trying not to cry.

Georgie gently placed their hands on her cheeks and looked at her with worry, gentle in a way Melanie was certain she could never be.

“Hey,” they whispered softly, “what’s wrong?”

Melanie closed her eyes, trying to control her breath and find her words.

“ **You better leave now** ,” she finally managed to say, and Georgie frowned.

“Where is that coming from?” they asked, and they sounded so confused and absolutely clueless to it all that Melanie couldn’t keep herself from sobbing.

“I’m linked to the Institute” she said, “I’m trapped in it-”

“-I know that already,” Georgie interrupted, like it didn’t matter, like it didn’t change anything.

“You’re going to get hurt,” Melanie continued, gripping Georgie’s wrists like the pressure could make them understand better, “the longer you spend with me, the more danger you’re in, I can’t let that happen.”

Georgie whispered her name, brushed her thumbs on her cheeks, and Melanie walked out of their touch, regretting it the moment their warmth left her face, but staying away resolutely.

“You can’t die,” she said, “I can’t lose you.”

“So instead you leave me behind?”

“Not behind,” Melanie countered, frowning, trying to get them to understand, “just away and safe.”

There was sadness in Georgie’s eyes, and hurt, and confusion, and Melanie walked away before she got too weak to leave, forcing herself not to look back. Georgie didn’t call back, or maybe she just didn’t hear them.

She walked back into the Institute, ignored Rosie’s questions and got back to the tunnels. Somewhere close, the coffin whined softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is hurt/comfort not comfort/comfort. gotta put Some angst in there  
> also i don't control the prompts, i make do with what i have


	15. Not interested, thank you

Living in the Institute was, overall, very boring. Melanie, after procrastinating for months, eventually got around to selling her apartment. She barely ever went there, these days. Got changes of clothes, mostly. Most of her belongings had moved to her little niche in the tunnels, with the help of Helen (who made it quite easy to move furniture across the city).

It did mean, however, that there was pretty much no reason to leave the building, ever.

Daisy, once Jon (the absolute fucking idiot of a man) brought her out of the coffin, took to hanging out with her. If sitting in a corner of the room silently, not making a sound other than the occasional sigh or shift of clothes as she moved could be considered hanging out.

Melanie figured it made sense in a way. They had both recently been avatars of blood thirsty entities before being freed and left to be trapped by another. The Hunt and the Slaughter, when you thought about it, weren’t too different overall. The same thing could be said about the Eye and the Buried, in Melanie’s experience. She was trapped in the Institute forever, but didn’t even get any cool knowledge powers.

She was pretty sure that Daisy hadn’t overthought any of it. After six months without being able to move, she’d probably gotten used to going hours without really thinking.

Melanie didn’t mind too much. She spent her days keeping herself busy on her laptop, not paying attention to Daisy, who did whatever she did somewhere in the room. She might not be able to kill Elias, but she could still watch Netflix with the Wi-Fi he paid for. When someone passed by her desk, she could just pretend she was listening to a statement.

She did get a little lonely. She missed Georgie, more than she ever had. She’d gotten a few weeks of calm with her, but in retrospect, she couldn’t help but think of how much time that was, and all the danger she could have put her in, and all the opportunities the entities had had to hurt her.

Which was why, when she ran into her at the grocery store while looking for tampons and painkillers, she didn’t really find it in herself to get away from her.

Georgie seemed to hesitate, shifting her weight towards the walls just so Melanie could have room to leave if she wanted to, but staring at her like her gaze could her there. It worked, in a way.

“So, periods, right,” Melanie said, sounding painfully awkward, and Georgie couldn’t keep a shy chuckle.

She nodded slowly, looking very much like she was desperately trying to find a way to keep Melanie there.

“I miss you,” she settled on saying, and Melanie felt her heart clench in her chest.

“Me too, but-” she sighed, frustrated and angry at herself and so, so tired, “I don’t want to put you in danger.”

“I don’t care.”

“Do you just not care about your safety? Don’t you want a life free of danger and attacks and fucking fear gods trying to hurt you and kill you and control you and use you?”

“ **Not interested, thank you,** ” Georgie answered flatly, “not without you.”

Melanie was pretty sure she stopped breathing for a second of two, stuck between the frustration and the fear and the exhaustion and the absolute wonder of Georgie being the way she was, open and honest and unapologetically loving.

“If you come in contact with one of the entities, even once, even just slightly,” Melanie said, “you’ll be stuck, they’ll keep coming back.”

“I met one once, there still haven’t been any consequences. Unless Jon staying at my place and you coming back counts as interference from the entities.”

Melanie flinched at the way it was phrased. She wasn’t linked to the Slaughter anymore. She wasn’t an avatar, she didn’t have anything to do with it. Georgie seemed to notice, and apologised, her voice soft, and she sounded so genuinely sorry, so different from these half thought apologies made out of politeness and habit, that Melanie couldn’t even bring herself to feel bad about Georgie’s words.

Thinking back on them, the first part finally caught back to her brain, and she frowned, confused.

“Hang on,” she said, slowly, like it could make time for her to understand, “what do you mean you met one.”

So Georgie told her about Alex, and the dead woman, and the entire story, in a monotone, detached voice. The tampon aisle might not have been the best place to discuss it, but neither seemed to mind.

“I know it’s not as bad as getting shot by a ghost or anything,” she said at the end, “but, you know,”

“It’s at least equally creepy,” Melanie completed, and Georgie nodded.

“All of this to say that I don’t care that you’re bound to the Institute and various weird fear entities,” she continued, “or I do care, but I don’t mind, and I don’t blame it on you. I care about you, and I want good things for you. If that doesn’t include me, then that’s okay, but don’t-” a sigh “-don’t try to keep me safe or whatever. I’m good.”

“Are you sure the whole ‘not feeling fear anymore’ thing isn’t making you think it’s a good idea when it’s not?”

“I don’t feel afraid, but I’m still aware of what’s dangerous and what isn’t,” Georgie counterred, “I’m not afraid of getting hit by a car, but I still check right and left before crossing the road.”

“Do you, though?” Melanie smirked, and Georgie huffed in mock indignation.

“Alright so maybe I mostly listen for the sound of engines, and maybe I got caught off guard that one time because electric cars are weirdly silent, and maybe you were there to witness it, but that was like two years ago, and I didn’t die!”

Melanie laughed at the memory.

“You looked so confused!” she giggled, feeling freer than she had in what seemed like forever, “I didn’t notice at the time that you didn’t look like you’d been afraid of the situation, you just looked so genuinely perplexed by the car when you saw it.

“I didn’t hear it coming!” Georgie protested, “I thought the path was clear!”

Melanie could remember the day, when Georgie just walked onto the road before full-body frowning when a car appeared on her left, honking away, and looking back at Melanie with most disconcerted expression, muttering a soft “what the fuck” she could read on her lips more than hear.

“It wasn’t even funny,” Melanie said, “but it was so unexpected!”

“You just love to make fun of me,” Georgie pouted, “mock my despair, Ms King, if you must. But do it away from me, so that you may spare my heart.”

“Alright, my liege.”

“Cute gender neutral things to call your partner.”

“I personally prefer coward,” Melanie said pensively, trying not to laugh again.

Georige sighed in mock exasperation, and for a moment they could almost pretend they were back to before, when things were alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they never get separated again now, i promise


	16. I never wanted anything else

Over the course of the next few weeks, Melanie started spending time at Georgie’s. It was just afternoons over the week-end, at first, but it evolved into movie nights, into dinner, into Georgie offering them to sleep in the guest room when they stayed too late. At the beginning of the summer, they pretty much lived there.

Melanie made sure not to bring any of their belongings, made it clear that Georgie could throw them out at any moment, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. In fact, he still offered the same bright, joyful smile every time Melanie accepted his invitations to stay over.

“We’ve got a year of lost time to make up for,” he exclaimed once, and he didn’t sound like he blamed Melanie for it, and more like he was grateful for the time that he had then.

At some point, Melanie started crying often. They never used to, before, numbed by the constant, overbearing pressure of everything at the Institute, and even before all of that, when they had convinced themself that they were tough and didn’t need to cry until they eventually broke down.

Something changed when she started spending more time with Georgie. They felt better, overall, freer. They might even say happy, sometimes. But it made going back to the Institute infinitely worse.

Every day, they got back to work. They essentially just sat at their desk and made themself busy, occasionally chatting with Basira and Daisy, even though they didn’t like them much. When they felt guilty for staying at Georgie’s too much, they spent the night at the Institute, alone in the tunnels, in their small, dark room underground that looked more and more like a prison cell. It was so lonely, down there, so cold.

So they cried.

Because they were trapped forever in an Institute they never meant to join. Because Elias fucking Bouchard had tricked them, and Martin had tried to warn them, but they’d just brushed him off. Because if they’d listened to him, they might have been safe. Because they couldn’t even talk about it with him, or talk to him at all, because, he, too had gotten involved with powers he couldn’t control, and there didn’t seem to be anything to do to help him.

Because Basira had looked like she respected them, after the Flesh, like she considered them an equal, but since Jon and her had taken the bullet out she was all disdain and pity. Because she didn’t even try to care for Daisy, considered her too weak, and Melanie was the one who was supposed to play buddies with her.

Because Sasha was gone, and they’d never even gotten the chance to know her, but they still missed her. Because the weight of their loss always loomed over everyone at the Institute, and the guilt of not having noticed. Because Tim had asked once, what she had looked like - the real Sasha - and Melanie barely remembered, but they’d tried their best, and it hadn’t really seemed like it was enough.

Because Tim was dead, because he’d been so angry, and if he’d survived the Unknowing, maybe he would have satisfied his desire for revenge, maybe Jon and him would have talked things through, and maybe he would have gotten better. Because they missed him. They had gotten rather close, both with their overwhelming anger they couldn’t control. Because he was still funny, when he wasn’t angry, and Melanie had heard tales of his pranks, and they wished they could have lived through more.

Because Tim and Sasha were gone, forever, and Martin was as good as gone, and Jon wasn’t human anymore. Because no one at the Institute really had Melanie’s back, and the Archives were just a knot of anger and fear and guilt and an endless run against the clock, against these rituals.

Because now that they knew about them, there could never be a world where they could go to sleep and not have to wonder if it had been their last day in a normal world. Because the normal world sucked, and the alternative was so much worse, and there didn’t seem to be any way for anything to ever be good.

Because Georgie was wonderful. He was always there, kind, funny, patient, with a smile that lit up the world and hugs that made them feel like maybe life could be okay. Because with each moment of happiness with them, there were more dangers waiting just around the corner. Because Melanie didn’t feel like they deserved any of it, because they knew that each second spent with Georgie was stolen, and that in the end, life would only get worse.

Because they felt so, so powerless against it all.

When Melanie cried in front of Georgie, he would pull them into a hug, warm and safe and comforting. He wouldn’t try to sell them lies. He would run his hands through their hair and whisper words of reassurance, sing a lullaby, sometimes. Melanie fell asleep like this once. When they woke up, two hours later, Georgie hadn’t moved. He brushed off their apologies with a smile and brushed a strand of their hair behind their ear.

“Don’t you think you should talk to a therapist about this?” he whispered once, “don’t get me wrong, I love that you trust me enough to talk about all of this, but don’t you think you would benefit from having, like, a neutral third party who’s qualified to help people with their mental health?”

Melanie sighed. They’d thought about it, more than once, but they never really got to it. There was still a part of them that thought they deserve to get help, that they didn’t feel bad enough to require therapy, that they were making it all up to feel special or something along these lines. Georgie bringing it up made them feel a little less self-centered and whiny, but they were still hesitant.

“I don’t know,” they mumbled, “could they even help me? I would have to censor everything. Pretty much all of my issues are about the Institute.”

They buried their head a little further in Georgie’s neck, enjoying the way his fingers trailed lightly at the base of their neck, slow and gentle.

“I guess there’s some stuff to get from my dad’s death or whatever, but bitch ass Elias had to add a pinch of supernatural to the whole thing. How do I tell a therapist that I have nightmares about the last week of my father’s life, that I can feel him getting infected by the disease, slowly, inescapably, that I can see the way the Corruption avatar stared at him with his empty, dead eyes while he begged for help. And it’s not even irrational nightmares, it’s the truth of what actually happened, because the world is inherently a motherfucking nightmare.”

Georgie hummed pensively.

“You could say you’re stuck in a toxic workplace, that you can’t leave, that you don’t feel comfortable talking about it yet. You can say the atmosphere is making you feel bad, that two of your coworkers died in a workplace accident you don’t want to elaborate on, that you witnessed a lot of violence and it left a mark, and that you don’t know how to deal with it. It sounds pretty unsupernatural.”

“How do I say I’ve been controlled by an evil fear god of slaughter, that I had to cut through piles of Flesh monster, that I still remember the way it felt to plunge my arm through a man’s chest to tear out his heart, that I can still smell blood everywhere I go?”

“I don’t know,” Georgie sighed, and he sounded so tired, for a second, Melanie thought they might cry again.

“I’m sorry,” they whispered, “you shouldn’t have to deal with that.”

“It’s alright,” he murmured softly, “I want you to be happy. I just-” a sigh, “-I think therapy could help, you know, even if you don’t say everything. Don’t you want to be happier?”

“ **I never wanted anything else** ,” Melanie answered into Georgie’s neck, “I didn’t exactly expect that spending time with you would make all my problems go away, but I still hoped I wouldn’t be sad all the time. I want to have some fun with you, but I just end up crying.”

Georgie held them closer, resting his head on the top of theirs, and Melanie wondered if they’d fall asleep again. Nowhere in the world felt safer than in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> officially passed half of fictober! fifteen more prompts to write, yeehaw. i Will do the whole thing


	17. Give me a minute or an hour

One day, without much of a warning, Georgie had asked Melanie to move in with her. They had been sitting on her couch on a Saturday afternoon, waiting for her to bring them tea, scrolling aimlessly on social media.

"Do you want to move in with me?" Georgie had asked, without warning, from the kitchen, "like, for real?"

Melanie had looked up, their brain trying to catch up with Georgie's words as she appeared in the doorway, a steaming mug of tea in each hand, holding them like they weren’t burning hot, which Melanie had always found oddly attractive.

"You already pretty much live here," she continued, "and I was just thinking, don't you want to like, officially be here? move all your stuff, not have to go back to the Institute all the time?"

She handed Melanie a mug, and they just stared at her, not sure what to say or do. Their first instinct was to say yes, without hesitation, get Helen to bring everything now, never have to leave this home again. But they were already thinking about worst case scenarios, and everything that could go wrong, and-

"Don't feed me any if that 'I don't want to be a bother' or ‘what if it’s dangerous’ bullshit," Georgie interrupted their train of thoughts, sitting down next to them with her legs tucked under herself, looking at them, "you know you'll always be welcome here. You don't have to say yes, but I'm just saying, if you, like, wanted to move in, I'd happily let you."

So there they were, a few weeks later, moving furniture and boxes up to Georgie's apartment, without Helen's help. It hadn’t taken as long as they’d feared to fill all of the paperwork, but they still wondered why none of the Fears was dedicated to administrative bullshit.

There wasn’t much furniture to bring: Georgie’s guest room was already fully furnished. They only brought the small bedside table they’d gotten for their tenth birthday and had carried around ever since, and many, many cardboard boxes full of all their belongings. There were books, notebooks, clothes, and mountains of completely useless objects that they didn’t have the heart to throw away.

Georgie happily helped them carry it all, claiming that she could count it as a workout session. Melanie hadn’t let her inside the Institute, but someone from Storage and her trainee had helped them bring everything to where she’d parked the rental truck. They had offered to get them coffee as a thanks, but the two women just brushed it off, muttering something about escaping their boss for a bit. Melanie wondered if every boss in that place was a dick. Surely there must be one good one?

By the time everything was in Georgie’s apartment and Melanie had unpacked the essentials, Georgie ordered pizza over the phone, trying not to laugh as her new roommate all but let herself fall to the floor, laying on the cold kitchen tiles and sighing with satisfaction.

They talked for a bit, Melanie on the floor, Georgie sat on the kitchen counter, until the doorbell rang and she left the room to get their pizza.

“Food’s here,” she exclaimed in a cheerful, sing-songy voice when she came back, “get your ass off that floor.”

“ **Give me a minute or an hour** ,” Melanie sighed dramatically, “I am more tired than ever before in my life.”

They thought, briefly, of everything that had happened in the past year and a half, and the constant exhaustion that they had felt in their bones, for days on end, fatigued no matter how much they slept. They pushed the thought away, instead holding up their arms and giving their best shot at puppy eyes.

Georgie sighed in mock exasperation, walking towards them to help them up, but the Admiral opted for that moment to walk past her and onto Melanie's stomach, settling on them and meowling his satisfaction.

“It’s free real estate, isn’t it, gremlin?” Melanie hummed, hissing as he planted his claws on their ribs in his search for a comfortable position.

“No pizza for you,” Georgie said gravely, “the Admiral said so.”

“Quite homophobic, if you ask me.”

“Hey!” Georgie protested, “my cat has never been homophobic. He is very affectionate with every non-binary non-straight person he meets. Especially the bi ones, actually. Maybe he’s just lesbophobic.”

“How could you do this to me?” Melanie exclaimed, holding the cat above their head, “I trusted you, Admiral!”

The cat meowed, sounding very much confused, looking up at Georgie accusingly like she was responsible for him being held up like a human baby by his owner’s new roommate.

“You’re going to have to get used to that, buddy,” she told the cat, “Melanie lives here now.”

The Admiral meowed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry helen didn't come :/ we already got some A+ helen content this week on mag183, we wouldn't want to overdose


	18. You don't see it?

Melanie had thought, naïvely perhaps, that everything would be fine if she didn’t think about the Institute too much. She’d be stuck there forever, but she could just work on her individual projects at her desk, close her eyes to everything wrong with it, go to therapy, and go home to Georgie.

She was fairly certain she’d fallen in love with them. It was hard not to. They were her best friend, and everything a best friend should be. Fun, kind, comforting, the perfect partner in crime and the perfect person in whose arms to cry.

They fit together well, had pretty much the same sense of humour and political opinion, and just understood each other. Melanie had never felt closer to anyone before.

It could very well be platonic and stay that way, but of course she had to go and get a crush on Georgie. She couldn’t be blamed for it, it wasn’t like she could control the way her chest warmed at every act of kindness for them, or the sheer happiness of just having the opportunity of talking to them.

She’d fallen in love before, she knew how it felt. It had been a while since she’d fallen in love with a close friend, but then again, it had been a while since the last time she’d had a close friend.

She didn’t mind her feelings too much, most of the time. There were just moments, when she got so very aware that they could never be returned, and that she would likely never be loved the way she wished she were, and that there was nothing she could do about it. And yet, there was a small sliver of hope, the smallest chances that Georgie might like her back, and she couldn’t get herself to ignore it and get over her crush.

So she'd been sitting at her desk, thinking about Georgie and daydreaming situations in which they would confess their fictional feelings for her and everything would be fine, when Jon all but barged in and told her he'd found a way to leave the Institute.

Melanie tried to find it in her to refuse, to make herself choose the easy way and stay at the Institute, but she was so very tired.

She hadn't made a decision, per, se, but that evening she walked around Georgie's apartment, blindfolded, trying to see what it would feel like.

She walked slowly, arms in front of her, assessing the number of sharp edges and counting steps between places. She tried daily tasks, realising quite quickly that her phone was pretty much out of the question. How far could text-to-voice go? She would have to do some research.

"Where the fuck is the fucking tea," she muttered frustratingly in the middle of kitchen.

" **You don't see it?** " Georgie's voice came from the door.

Melanie startled. She hadn't even heard them come in.

"Why do you have a blindfold on?" they asked, "are you training for a Pin the Tail at work or something?"

"I, uh," Melanie started, "I have a migraine? Seeing stuff hurt, so I decided to cover my eyes so I wouldn't have to focus on closing them."

It wasn't too much of a stretch. She'd had headaches strong enough that she couldn't keep her eyes open before. Georgie had witnessed a few.

"Modern problems require modern solutions, I guess," they said, still sounding confused, "have you taken painkillers?"

"I have not," Melanie answered, "that is a galaxy brained suggestion actually. I should have thought of that."

Georgie chuckled lightly.

"Go sit on the couch," they said, "I'll get you tea and meds."

"Thank you, 'o great one," Melanie sighed, walking towards what she thought was the doorway, before Georgie grabbed her arms and stopped her.

"You were walking right in the wall," they said, a hint of laughter in their voice, "come on, I'll guide you."

It seemed so simple, the way they said it. Melanie wondered what would happen if she did take Jon's suggestion, how long Georgie would help her to the couch with her usual cheerfulness before they got tired.

She decided to brush off these worries, doing their best to focus on the moment. Georgie brought tea, sat on the couch next to her, pressed the back of their hand to her forehead, muttered something about her not having temperature, asked if she wanted to be left alone.

Melanie settled her head on their shoulder, closing her eyes under the blindfold and sighing with satisfaction as she lightly brushed the fingers of one hand on the side of her mug, feeling it burn lightly under her skin.

Georgie gently lowered their head to rest on top of her, and she smiled. She would worry later.


	19. I can't do this anymore

Melanie tried to convince herself she’d think things through before making life-changing decisions. She did.

After Jon’s revelation, she walked through the Institute, wondering what it would feel like to not be attached to it, to not be trapped within its walls. Her therapist had asked, once, what she would do if she were to be free. It hadn’t been a possibility, back then, and Melanie had refused to answer, refused to think about it, to nourish some impossible fantasy she had no hope of ever living.

After finding out it was possible, she didn’t know what to think. What would she do? She’d be free, but she’d be blind, and without income. Were there government aids for that? Would she be able to get a job? Would she even want to? Would Georgie still want her there? Would she need to find a new place? Start over?

How would she even go around to actually doing it? Were there safe medical procedures to blind yourself? That couldn’t be possible. She’d have to do it herself. Could she even bring herself to do it? One eye, then the other.

She’d had to dissect a bull’s eye in biology class in high school, she knew the cornea was hard to pierce through. It would take effort, and an unwavering determination she wasn’t sure she would have. What if she ended up with one eye, unable to finish the job? No, she’d have to find another way. Directly to the nerves, from the outside?

The thought of it made her shudder, bile rising in her throat. There was a way to be free, and she was just too weak to take it.

“What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?” Georgie asked gently from the other end of the sofa where, Melanie suddenly remembered, she was sitting, looking at her intently.

“Jon found a way to leave the Institute,” she blurted out before she could overthink it, already trying not to regret her decision. She didn’t like keeping things from Georgie.

“From your lack of enthusiasm I can guess it’s not an easy choice to make,” she said, eyebrows knitted in concern, putting her phone down to dedicate her whole attention to Melanie, “do you want to tell me?”

“It’s not good,” she murmured, “we’re bound to the Institute by the Beholding, it controls us through our eyes, so…”

She sighed, scratching the corners of her eyes absentmindedly.

“Oh,” Georgie breathed out, and Melanie nodded slowly.

“And blindfolds don’t work?”

Melanie shook her head, staring at the bottom of her cup of tea like it could give her an answer.

“And you’re going to do it”

It wasn’t a question. Melanie supposed it was fair, she was never really going to refuse. There was certainty in Georgie’s voice. She knew just as much as any that Melanie wouldn’t stay at the Institute, no matter the cost of freedom. She would find a way. She was willing to hurt if it meant she could leave.

“ **I can’t do this anymore** ,” she murmured, and she sounded so weak, so tired. Her voice rose barely above a whisper.

Georgie lowered her head for a moment, raised it again, staring straight into Melanie’s eyes. She looked like she was mourning something and trying not to show it.

“I’m sorry I’m not an easy roommate to deal with,” Melanie tried to chuckle. It came off stilled and dry, and Georgie offered a sympathetic smile.

“You’re the best of roommates,” she said, frowning slightly, “none of what’s happening to you is your fault, I won’t blame it on you.”

“You never asked for any of this.”

“Neither did you.”

They stayed silent for a minute, and Melanie wondered if she would cry again. She could feel her eyelids getting heavy and the corners of her eyes blurring slightly. Her hand twitched in her lap as she struggled to keep herself from scratching her face again. Georgie seemed to notice, and reach out her own to hold it.

“I’m here for you, Melanie,” she murmured gently, brushing her thumb over her knuckles gently, “for as long as you’ll need me.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered back, feeling tears well up in her eyes again, clenching her jaw to keep them in, hating how easily they came those days.

Georgie took her mug, placed it on the floor next to the sofa, her movements slow and gentle, and brought her into a hug, warm and safe, arms wrapped tightly against her.

“You’ll be alright,” she said.

Melanie closed her eyes, settling in the comfort of her embrace. She could almost convince herself she believed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aand that's a wrap for act 2. ngl i think it's pretty neat that i managed to divide the three major parts of the story equally and i didn't even do it on purpose. anyway, no on to the No Institute Melanie chapters


	20. Did I ask?

Gauging your own eyes out in an empty library wasn’t an enjoyable experience. One out of ten, Melanie wouldn’t recommend. She did attribute one point to the whole “getting to leave the Institute” thing.

She felt the grip of the Beholding disappear the moment she was done with her second eye. Everything that kept her together let go and she fell to her knees, the ache barely noticeable compared to the all-consuming pain in her eyes. She didn’t scream, clenching her jaw so hard it hurt for days afterwards, containing sobs as her tears blended with the blood.

It had hurt. She didn’t remember much else, her mind overwhelmed by the burning it, all thoughts focused on how to make it stop. It didn’t.

Thankfully, no employee had to see her. She thought about it, days afterwards, wondering what would have happened if someone had walked in on her like that, reached her before the ambulance did. As it happened, no one did.

The first few days at the hospital were a bit of a blur. She slept, mostly, if passing out from the pain could be considered sleeping. The time she spent awake, she was too high on painkillers to really remember.

Georgie had come, as soon as they’d been able to, asking why she hadn’t waited and done it in a safer way, like they’d agreed. There was no anger in their question, of course, only worry and care.

Melanie had looked at a picture of them, before she did it. She’d wanted their smile to be the last thing she’d ever see. The real version would have been better, but she certainly didn’t want Georgie to be there. She wanted their presence, but she didn’t want to put them through something like this.

It was strange, not seeing. It still hadn’t really registered in her brain. She could still feel something, in the back of her mind, just waiting for a light to turn on, convinced she’d gain her vision back if she weren’t just sitting in the dark.

She knew it wasn’t true. Sitting in Georgie’s living room, on her first day back, by the window, she could feel the sun on her skin as it slowly set behind the horizon.

_ Just open your eyes, there are probably birds outside, _ the stubborn remnant of instinct kept saying in the back of her mind. As it were, she would never see a bird again. She wondered if you could pet a bird.

Georgie’s footsteps resonated from the corridor as they left the bathroom.

“What’s up, King?” they called out cheerfully.

During Melanie’s hospital stay, they’d taken the time to change things around the apartment. Protected the sharp angles of furniture, put bits and pieces of braille on light switches and the likes. They’d started learning together the day before Melanie “did the job”, as they liked to euphemise.

Georgie sat across from her, sighing with content. It had been a long day for them.

“I’m sorry you have to deal with all of this,” Melanie whispered, still used to being quiet in the dark, “if you ask me you should have ditched me long ago.”

“ **Did I ask?** ” Georgie chuckled, with a forced nonchalance that didn’t really hide the sadness, “you didn’t ask for any of this, I’m not going to blame it on you.”

“Still, you didn’t ask to have to deal with a weirdass person with vague mental health problems who suddenly ended up blind.”

“I asked to be your friend,” Georgie murmured, “as long as you stay by my side I’ll be alright. I really like you.”

_ Not like that _ , Melanie had to remind herself. She couldn’t hope, couldn’t presume. Couldn’t ruin it all. Couldn’t make Georgie feel like they needed to return her feelings, out of pity maybe.

“It’s great being your friend,” Melanie said, “I’m really happy to have you by my side.”

“Likewise.”

She could hear the smile in their voice, could picture the way it curled sweetly at the corners of their mouth, could imagine the way their head leaned on one side when they looked away. She wondered how Georgie looked at her, now that Melanie couldn’t see it.

She really, really wanted to stand up, walk up to them, place her hand on their cheeks and kiss them softly. She might be a badass, but she was still a soft bitch.

“You’re frowning,” Georgie said, matter-of-factly, “what are you thinking about?”

“You.”

“What did I do to make you frown?”

“You’re so-” Melanie sighed, “just wonderful in every way.”

“And that pisses you off?” they asked, a hint of laughter in their voice.

“No? Yes? I just don’t understand how I get to be friends with a literal angel.”

Georgie laughed, without restraint, cheerful and a little too loud.

“I’m friends with a demon,” they snickered when Melanie started pouting.

“Sexy demon?”

“Yes.”

There was no hesitation in Georgie’s voice, and it didn’t sound like a joke anymore. Melanie wanted to know what it would feel like to hook a finger under their chin and pull them up into a kiss.

There was a line between platonic and romantic compliments, Melanie was aware. She wished she knew where it was. They’d always talked like this, and she knew Georgie had seen her talk with Lana in ways that couldn’t be considered platonic. If she started shamelessly flirting, would they think it was platonic? And if they didn’t, would they get freaked out and run away?

Melanie wished, more than anything, that she could have just not gone and gotten a crush on her best friend. But the thought of them actually liking her back was overwhelming, in a very, very good way. She couldn’t keep herself from hoping.

The silence stretched on, and Melanie tried to think of something, anything, that would bring Georgie to know that they were very welcome to ask her out, but also that they didn’t have to. She had asked people out before, but she hadn’t really cared about them in the way she cared about Georgie.

The only time she’d been that in love before a relationship started, it had been with Lana. And she was the one who had asked her out. Melanie had just had to sit there, marveling at what a wonderful straight couple they would be, as Lana asked her to go out with her, with the boys from her basketball team cheering her on. Things had changed since then, since neither of them turned out to be their assigned gender at birth, nor straight. Life was just like that, she figured.

Georgie slapped their thighs lightly, grunting as they got up.

“Oh, I sounded like a middle-aged man right there,” they muttered.

“Trans icon,” Melanie chuckled, and Georgie let out a loud laugh.

“I’m going to cook some dinner, like the good, progressive husband I am,” they said, lowering their voice enough octaves down that it sounded a little ridiculous.

“Wonderful, darling,” Melanie sang as they walked away, dragging the letters in a forced high pitched voice.

Laughter resonated from the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're two third of the way down the line now yeehaw


	21. This, this makes it all worth it

Two weeks in, Melanie was starting to really get her bearings. She had quite a few bruises from walking too confidently into walls, doorknobs and other such things. They went on walks, and Georgie took the time to describe everything they could see. They did that often, just telling Melanie about the funniest things she was missing, from ridiculous adverts to failed fashion experiments of people on the streets to Instagram posts.

“It’s a really lovely shade of green,” they were saying about the picture of a house, “but it really clashes with the surroundings. Especially the grass. It’s just slightly off, it looks horrendous.”

“I wish I could see that,” Melanie chuckled, “but I had to go and gauge my eyes out”.

She was of the opinion that laughing about things was better than crying about them. She’d done a fair amount of crying, she had a lot of tasteless jokes to make to compensate.

“Do you ever regret it?” Georgie asked carefully, quietly, leaving room for Melanie not to answer.

She shrugged, sighing.

“I do miss Instagram, because I’m a millennial and addicted to technology and I’ll miss lots of pictures of avocado toast,” she grinned comically, “but  **this** ”, she patted Georgie’s legs where they rested on her lap, “ **this makes it all worth it** .”

Georgie didn’t answer, at first. They probably smiled.

“What would I do without you?” they murmured, brushing a strand of hair behind Melanie’s ear, a little roughly despite an attempt at gentleness. Melanie leaned into their warmth, forgetting the question.

“I still can’t believe I’m free,” she said, “I’m not trapped anymore, I can feel it. I can do whatever I want.”

Georgie hummed in agreement, playing with Melanie’s hair, tracing shapes on the back of her head.

“You can travel around the world, nothing’s stopping you.”

“Would you come with me?”

“Anywhere,” Georgie answered, without hesitation.

“It’s nice here, though,” Melanie murmured.

“It’s nice because you’re here.”

“I was gone for a while, I’m sure it was still nice.”

“Debatable,” Georgie said, “it’s been much nicer since you came back.”

Melanie turned her head to them, leaning in the palm of their hand as it settled on her cheek, warm and soft, just a little rough where the palm connected with the fingers.

“You’re very warm,” Georgie mumbled, and Melanie smiled, moving her face just enough that she could place a kiss at the edge of their palm.

A giggle escaped them, and they brushed their thumb across her cheek, grazing the corner of her mouth. Melanie wondered if they were blushing. She was pretty certain she was, could feel the burn everywhere Georgie’s skin came in contact with hers. She loved them so much she wanted to cry.

“I’m in love with you,” she wanted to say, desperately. Could feel the words pushing on her tongue. She stayed silent, breath hitching as her heart clenched in her chest, tight and aching.

“I’m in love with you,” Georgie whispered, so low Melanie wondered if she’d misheard, if she’d only heard what she wanted to hear.

They were already taking their hand away, body curling in on itself, and she intertwined their fingers, bringing their hand back to her. Melanie snatched it back, trying to convince her brain to stop overthinking it.

“I really really like you,” she blurted out, “like, romantically.”

Georgie’s hand relaxed in hers.

“Oh?” they murmured, softly, weakly, in a very uncharacteristic way.

“Can I kiss you?” Melanie asked, because she really, really wanted to, “you don’t have to say yes, obviously, I just thought, you know, um-”

Georgie held her face gently and she stopped talking, holding her breath. She felt them bring their face closer, move their hands just so they rested on Melanie's cheeks gently. They brushed their lips against hers, soft and questioning, and she leaned in their touch, bringing a hand to their neck and the other to their hip. She brushed a thumb along its curve, feeling Georgie move closer, kissing them again and again, gentle and warm and loving.

She tried to fight a smile, but it surfaced anyway, spreading across her face and breaking the kiss. Georgie rested their forehead against hers.

“So this happened,” they muttered incredulously.

“Wild,” Melanie grinned, and Georgie sighed in mock exasperation.

“Very romantic, Ms King.”

“Shut up and kiss me again.”

“That’s better,” Georgie mumbled, and they leaned in again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have mixed feelings about this but we're running on tight deadlines here folks. uni professors really said "want free time? fuck you <3" and gave me a Whole Book of vocabulary to learn for translation class. like a whole entire full book. so okay i have until january but Still  
> anyway wtgfs love them babes


	22. And neither should you

“So what’s up with this dress?” Melanie asked, opening the curtain of their stall in the store’s fitting room.

“Hot,” Georgie answered after a second of consideration.

“Isn’t it weird around the waist? I feel like it’s weird around the waist.”

“It looks great around the waist!”

“It is weird around the waist,” Melanie insisted.

“Okay so it is a little weird around the waist but it doesn’t look bad.”

“You shouldn’t lie to your girlfriend!” Melanie protested, crossing their arms in mock indignation.

“ **Neither should you** ,” Georgie retorted, crossing his own arms.

“It was one time!”

“You broke my heart,” Georgie cried out, before a giggle escaped him, and he leaned in to whisper, “the grandma over there is looking alarmed”

Melanie snorted, before stepping back inside the stall.

“I need a dress that doesn’t look weird around the waist.”

“Just don’t wear clothes,” Georgie suggested.

“I’m not showing naked at a restaurant, Georgie,” Melanie sighed, smiling, “I know I have the body of a god, but it’s not happening.”

“Too bad,” he answered, “try that blue dress, then, if you must.”

Their one month anniversary was coming up, although Melanie insisted that they couldn’t call in an anniversary, since it wasn't counted in years.

“Monthiversary? Monthaversary?” Georgie had suggested, and Melanie had hummed thoughtfully from where they were comfortably curled on his lap.

“One Month Party Restaurant Date,” they’d finally settled on.

“Lame.”

“You’re lame.”

“You wound me, Ms King.”

Melanie had laughed.

So there they were, in a dress shop, because they were in the mood for a dress and they didn’t own any that fit. Georgie described them all one by one, gave ridiculous “vibe checks” for the colours, ranging from “closeted midwestern american trans boy baby pink” to “lighthouse ghost of a widowed man blue-grey”.

Melanie nodded along, offering appreciative noises as they ran their fingers along the fabric.

“Too much polyester,” they said regularly, “ I require cotton.”

“This is 80% cotton,” Georgie retorted.

“I can feel the polyester,” Melanie hissed.

“Fine, your Majesty,” Georgie sighed comically loud, “this one is 100% cotton."

"What are the vibes?"

"A lovely ‘love affair between the Moon and the Sea dark blue and silvery grey'."

“Sounds gay, give me that.”

Georgie handed them the dress, and Melanie, after a minute of tracing the shape of it, hummed satisfyingly and tucked it in her elbow with the others.

“How many of these are you going to try?” Georgie asked.

“You volunteered a day out shopping, Barker,” Melanie answered, “as my patient and kind husband, you will be patient and kind.”

“Alright, my darling wife, take as much time as you need.”

“Better,” Melanie grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a short stupid chapter but i make the rules. i don't usually project on melanie, but im a bitch about polyester and melanie can get a little bit of my personality, as a treat


	23. Do we have to?

Melanie woke up to Georgie whispering gently in her ear.

"Time to get up, love," she said when Melanie started stirring, joints cracking and a yawn making its way out.

" **Do we have to?** " they mumbled sleepily, settling closer in her embrace, burying their head into her shoulder.

"Podcast isn't going to write itself," she answered, "we have lots of research to get done."

Melanie hummed, showing no indication that they were going to move. It was very comfortable, in Georgie's arms. They had no intention of leaving.

She sat up, making her way out of the bed, ignoring her girlfriend's protests, and Melanie held on tighter, wrapping their arms around her neck and legs around her waist, doing their best to pin her down on the bed. It didn't stop Georgie, who simply got up, carrying them out of the bed and down the corridor.

Melanie immediately complained about the cold, and Georgie laughed, that deep, rumbling laughter that they could feel vibrating where their chests connected. She held them closer and opened the kitchen door with their foot, earning a grunt as Melanie slid to the side.

Most mornings went like this. Melanie would try to get Georgie to stay in bed, and Georgie would simply carry them down to the kitchen and put them down on the counter.

Georgie had told them, a few times, that they hadn't expected them to be the clingy type, and Melanie had huffed in their mug of tea.

"I didn't take you for a soft wordy bitch either," they'd mumbled.

Georgie had smiled, squeezing Melanie's hands where they rested in hers.

"My love language is words of affirmation," she had murmured on their lips, "and I love you very, very much, I like to say it often and in many different ways."

Melanie had smiled, a little against their will, and they had brushed their nose against Georgie's.

"Mine is physical touch, in case you couldn't tell," they had said, running the tips of the fingers of one hand up and down their girlfriend's arm.

"I guessed as much," Georgie had mumbled, before pressing a small kiss on Melanie's lips, "I am very, very fine with that."

Melanie had hummed, stealing a few short kisses.

"I don't mind words of affirmation," they had said gravely, and Georgie had chuckled, whispering something about understatements, before kissing her again.

The kettle interrupted their kissing, as it did every day, and Melanie made a generic comment about it being rude, as they did everyday.

Georgie, as always, fussed about their teabags not being ready, and added a spoonful of honey in her earl grey, earning a disapproving noise from Melanie.

They completed their routine, eating breakfast, taking showers, picking outfits, and moving from the bedroom to the small office room, where they would do research for the podcast.

Melanie hadn’t returned publicly yet, but there was comfort in investigating dumb ghost stories. It was something they'd been doing for years, and they were great at it. So they helped Georgie with the podcast. Fans were very excited for the upcoming season, the seventh, and they wanted it to be great.

"Would you like to voice it with me?" Georgie asked that day during their lunch break.

"Yeah," Melanie answered without really thinking "I think I'd like that."

"Really?" Georgie exclaimed on a mouthful of broccoli.

They considered it, seriously this time. They'd thought about starting a podcast about ghosts, but joining Georgie's seemed frankly easier.

Their biggest concern was the audience. It had been well over two years since the train graveyard incident and the beginning of their fall from grace. They wondered how the public would react to their return.

"Should I just return to twitter now?" they finally said.

"Do you want to?"

"Kind of, yeah. I wonder how my account is going."

Georgie looked it up, and informed them that they still, in fact, had a few thousand followers.

"You still have blue hair on your profile pic," she said.

"Is it the picture where I'm posing with a zombie from the haunted house at the fair?"

Georgie hummed in agreement, scrolling through their account.

"New year, new me," Melanie said, even though it was May, "I'm going to delete all my tweets, change my profile pic and come out."

"Nice."

They ended up picking a picture of themselves crouching in front of the tomb of one Elias Sims, grinning at Georgie behind the camera with their tongue poking out between their teeths.

They were wearing their "snazzy sunglasses" (even though they knew it wasn't the right word to use) and a deep blue shirt with grey jeans, their hair falling in waves over the shoulders of their black leather jacket.

"Good choice," Georgie commented.

She loved that picture. They’d taken it a couple of months in their relationship, when they’d walked past a cemetery and Melanie had decided that they needed to know if cemeteries had the same “spooky vibe” when you couldn’t see the tombs. Their conclusion was a negative: the vibes were, in fact, “funky fresh”. Georgie had sighed and kissed them to shut them up.

"Back in the scene," Melanie grinned, deleting all their previous tweets, "I need to find a cool comeback sentence."

“Hello demons, it’s me, ya boy.”

“An interesting idea, but I think I’ll go with something funkier.”

“Alright,” Georgie chuckled.


	24. Are you kidding me?

The Admiral was, all in all, the stupidest cat that Melanie had ever met.

"You really are an absolute idiot, aren't you baby? The dumbest creature of this entire universe? The representation of the foolishness of all creation? Aren't you, my love?" she cooed while he stood there, front paws trapped into her hands, meowling his confusion.

"For a second there I thought you were talking to me," Georgie said from where she sat on the couch, reading.

Melanie snorted. She didn't think anyone could ever love someone as much as she loved Georgie.

"Maybe I was," she said in an exaggerated ominous tone, waggling her eyebrows, before snorting as she felt the cat munch on her hair, “actually no I’m talking about this small demon right here.”

Georgie laughed lightly, floorboards creaking as she stood up from the sofa and sat down across from her girlfriend. The Admiral turned around to go towards her.

“Traitor,” Melanie muttered.

“What a distinguished gentleman,” Georgie said, “shaking my hand very firmly like a strong boy man.”

Melanie laughed as the cat meowed again. She remembered the look on his face when one of them would take his paw and shake it gently.

They sat there for a while, petting the cat together, slowly edging closer until their knees were touching and they could feel each other’s presence. They did that often. Most of the time they would kiss, slow and tender, as much as the Admiral would allow, giggling in between kisses as he pressed his face to their chins jealously.

“So we are invited to participate in that ghost hunt convention you like in three months,” Georgie murmured after a kiss, like it was an unimportant detail, and Melanie leaned away abruptly, earning a sad meowl from the Admiral.

“ **Are you kidding me?** ” she exclaimed, and Georgie breathed out a laugh, “we are invited to participate in the convention I always dreamed of participating in more strongly than I ever dreamed of anything in my life?”

Georgie’s thumb brushed against her cheek gently and their foreheads touched again. She nodded.

“So maybe I dreamed of kissing you more than I dreamed about the convention,” Melanie murmured, and she could feel Georgie’s face shift in a smile before she pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

“We got an email from the organisators,” she explained, “What The Ghost got quite popular this year, what with one of the ex-hosts of Ghost Hunt UK returning from her exile. Plus we’re both out as non-binary now, it’s free diversity points.”

Melanie hummed, stealing another kiss.

“They didn’t mention that last part in the email,” Georgie added, “but we can please give our answer at least two months prior to the convention date.”

“How funky would it be if I cut my hair and dyed it blue again for the occasion,” Melanie murmured against her girlfriend’s lips, earning a breathy chuckle.

“Very funky,” one more kiss, “I would even say sexy.”

“It’s settled then,” Melanie grinned, “I trust you not to get me orange hair dye and tell me it’s blue.”

“If you behave,” Georgie murmured, a hint of laughter in their voice, before settling her hands at the back of Melanie’s neck and kissing her again. She didn’t stop her, holding her closer and pulling her in as she settled her back against the wall. The Admiral walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more week of soft wtgfs and it's Over my lads


	25. Sometimes you can even see

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen,,,, i tried to think of something to do with this prompt,,,, i did,,,,, i tried to fit it in as a joke,,,, as talk about dreams,,,, nothing worked,,,, so i decided to be gay, do crime, and write that chapter while completely disregarding the prompt

“And now for the last member of this panel, who we lost track of for over two years but who came back to us earlier this year, esteemed ghost hunter, ex-host of Ghost Hunt UK and now co-host of What The Ghost, Melanie King!” exclaimed the organiser.

The crowd cheered, and Melanie grinned, excitement running through their body. 

“So stuff happened,” they started, and the voices from the crowd slowly died down, “but I’m back in the scene! No more cis gender, no more eyes, but the blue hair is back and I’m really excited for all the content I’ll get to create with my wonderful girlfriend!”

The crowd cheered again, louder this time, as they let a sappy smile overtake their face as Georgie let out a comical sigh. They could picture him rolling his eyes and pretending to hide a grin.

Before they could quite register it happening, the panel was over, and the organiser was thanking them for their participation. They left the stage, holding Georgie’s hand, laughing at something he had said.

They were both engulfed by the crowd, and they talked with some fans. A few of them exclaimed their excitement at Melanie’s return, babbling on about how much they loved their content and how worried they’d been while they were gone, and Melanie tried not to let anxiety burst through the bubble of euphoria at the thought of the Institute.

“Melanie?” a voice called gently behind their, and they contained a gasp as they recognised it.

“Andy?” they exclaimed, torn between surprise, anxiety and nostalgia.

“It’s been a while,” she answered matter-of-factly. Melanie wondered if she still looked the same.

“What have you been up to?” they asked, “and Toni and Peter?”

“Pete left the field after we disbanded, found himself some stable job and wouldn’t stop bragging about what a responsible adult he was becoming and how he was taking his life seriously and we should grow up, realise we’re not twenty anymore and move on. We lost touch pretty quickly after that,” Andy answered, “Toni moved to Australia with that one Tinder girl.”

“Sofia? No, Ellie?”

“Pretty such it’s Maeve,” Andy chuckled, “they moved in together in Sidney for their two year anniversary.”

“I didn’t know Toni had the ability to take it that slow. Two entire years before moving in together, that doesn’t sound very in character.”

Andy chuckled, and Melanie let themselves smile. They’d missed her.

“And, well,” she sighed, “I managed to guest on a bunch of shows and make myself known on screen for about a year and a half, and then I started a channel with four other people, and we’re, er, we’re getting there. We’re hoping to guest in minor conventions in the next couple of years.”

“That’s pretty cool. How’s the on-screen going for you?”

“Takes some getting-used-to,” Andy answered, “you were always the best at it, but I kind of like it now. It’s pretty fun. Different from just writing and editing, but I’m really enjoying it!”

“I’m happy for you,” Melanie said, and they meant it.

“Also, Claire and I got married,” she added like it was nothing, although they could hear the smile in her voice.

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Melanie smiled, “you were pretty much married before you dated, I thought you’d try and get her in Ghost Hunt UK.”

“Yeah,” Andy sighed happily, “it was nice catching up with you, knowing you’re not dead and everything.”

“Likewise,” they answered a little awkwardly, well aware that Andy had not, in fact, disappeared from the face of the earth for over two years. She didn’t push the topic, instead squeezing their shoulder the same way she used to before bidding them goodbye.

Georgie gently intertwined their hands gently, tugging on their arm so they’d turn to him, and they stayed in silence for a bit.

“When was the last time you talked to her?” he asked in a whisper.

“I don’t even know,” Melanie muttered, “sometime between the train graveyard and India, I guess? There was never an official goodbye or official end to Ghost Hunt UK, just one day where we didn’t meet again, and then everything happened and youtube was the least of my concerns.”

“Do you think you’ll want to talk to Toni or Peter again?”

“I don’t even know.”

Their phone buzzed in their pocket and they sighed, plugging in their headphones and hoping they’d hear the message despite the noise from the crowd.

“Yo, Andy says you’re not dead anymore??” came a text from Toni who, after all these years, still apparently had priority in Melanie’s notifications, “Lowkey thought I’d meet your ghost somewhere lol. Also just found out you’re a she/they! Welcome to the team! Can’t believe we were both cisn’t for literal Years and we didn’t even know. Missed you xx”

“Well,” Melanie said, voice wavering between a laugh and nostalgia, repeating the message for Georgie.

“Well,” he repeated.

“Peter is officially the only cishet left in the group then,” Melanie chuckled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: i have no fucking idea how conventions work


	26. How about you trust me for once?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: it's soft bitch hours

Melanie was sitting on the kitchen counter, moving their head along to some slow song by The Neighborhood, the music echoing softly around the room. Georgie murmured the lyrics along quietly.

Melanie was fairly certain they’d never felt as in peace as they did in these moments of quiet domesticity, listening to Georgie’s voice growing louder with each song, always singing a little more softly than the artist. They sang too, sometimes. Mostly, they listened, let themselves be comforted by it all.

It had been over a year since they’d left the Institute, and every day felt just a little better. If someone had told them, back then, and before, that life would become like that, they’d have laughed, bitterly, probably punched them square in the face, hoping there would be blood.

The Admiral meowled at their feet, brought by the smell of Georgie’s cooking. Melanie couldn’t blame him.

There were the distinct sounds of a lid being placed over a pot, of the plaque’s timer being set, of the spatula being placed on the side, and Georgie stopped singing, breathing in a little too deeply in the way they did when they’d been focusing for too long and almost forgot to breathe.

“Dinner’s ready in thirty minutes,” they said, voice low and almost silent, and Melanie leaned into the sound, smiling.

The music changed, an old-timey waltz slowly growing louder, melancholic and eager.

“Can I have this dance?” Georgie asked sweetly, smile apparent in their voice.

They held their hand up just close enough to Melanie’s knee that they could feel it there, and they took it gently, hopping off the counter and into Georgie’s arms.

“Can you waltz?” they murmured, and Melanie snorted.

“Do I look like I can waltz?” they asked, settling a hand on Georgie’s shoulder. They could, in fact, very much not waltz.

“I could teach you.”

“Can you, really?”

Georgie huffed in mock offense.

“I will have you know I’m an excellent waltzer.”

“Is that a word?” Melanie chuckled, “wait, is Jon a good waltzer?”

“Absolutely terrible,” Georgie sighed, “absolutely no limb coordination, he danced like three rats in a trenchcoat trying to pretend they were all controlled by the same brain.”

“Wait until you find out I’m even worse.”

Georgie grabbed their phone, restarting the music, and held Melanie’s hip firmly, intertwining the fingers of their other hands tighter.

“It’s very easy,” they started, “I’m leading, you just have to follow my movements. You go one step behind, one step left, one step forward, and then you kind of turn and repeat.”

“That’s a terrible explanation,” Melanie chuckled, “you’re just going to bump me into furniture. I’ll knock over the pot and we won’t have any dinner. And then where will we be, huh?”

“ **How about you trust me for once?** ” Georgie sighed lightly, “you’ll see, it’s easy.”

Melanie tried to follow their movements, and ended up stepping on their feet a lot.

“We’re just doing easy steps!” Georgie laughed, “no twirls or anything, it’s basically always the same!”

“We don’t all have your superior intellect,” Melanie retorted, “also I do not want to step on the cat.”

“Smart.”

The music changed once again, switching to a slow, quiet lullaby. Georgie dropped Melanie’s hand, bringing it behind their neck instead, and they stopped waltzing, instead swaying lazily, holding each other gradually closer until they could rest their foreheads together, sharing the occasional kiss, lips barely brushing, noses bumping against each other.

Melanie wrapped their arms tighter around Georgie, burying their head in the crook of their neck, sighing in content as Georgie’s hand spread in the back of their hand, playing with their hair.

“I love you,” they murmured against their skin, and Georgie hummed softly, thumb grazing along the shell of their ear.

“Love you more,” they whispered.

“Insolent fool,” Melanie said, “I obviously love you more.”

“Sorry babe, but I love you the most and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, you’re just plain wrong. I love you more than any human has ever loved anyone.”

“Bold,” Georgie chuckled, “however, I can safely say that I, in fact, love you even more than that. More than any being has ever loved.”

“More than sunflowers love the sun?”

“More than the sea loves the moon, and more than the moon loves the sea.”

“And yet I love you more than that.”

Georgie gently pulled Melanie head away from their neck, earning a soft whine of disappointment, before pulling them close again, brushing their noses together, breathing against their lips, asking for permission. Melanie closed the distance, trying not to smile too wide, not wanting to break the kiss.

They brushed a thumb against Georgie’s cheekbone, following it with kisses. Georgie followed with a kiss to their jaw, and the Admiral protested from where he stood at their feet, hoisting himself until his paws reached their thighs, trying to push them apart.

They pressed their foreheads together, laughing lightly as the cat pushed harder, meowling his discontent.

“Alright,” Georgie finally relented, leaning down to pick him up. He settled in their embrace, purring when Melanie scooted closer to run their fingers through his fur.

Life was alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @november if there weren't 900 km between us would you dance in the kitchen with me and talk about the moon and the sea and their love and our love and kiss me


	27. Give me that

A little after their two-year anniversary, they decided to move out. They were tired of London, tired of the noise and the crowd and the cost of everything. They ended up finding a small house a short drive away from the sea, squeezed in a row of identical houses with tiny front yards and narrow parking spaces lined with tall, thin trees.

It didn’t look special, but it was affordable, cosy and hidden somewhere in that peaceful way that could only be found in these common, unnoteworthy places.

Over the week before they moved out, they packed their things, carefully tucking away their belongings in boxes and suitcases. Melanie had moved out of the guest room long ago, but some things were still there, tucked away in the cupboard. She put them all in their own boxes, disregarding the fact that they’d sat there forgotten for years and deciding to bring them anyway.

Andy and some of Georgie’ friend showed up on the day of the moving, and they helped them bring everything down to the rental truck and Toni’s old car (which they had left to Andy when they left the continent).

Melanie sat in the back, chatting with her friends. She’d gotten rather close with them since she’d moved in with Georgie, and had become a part of their group. It was nice, having friends. They never asked questions about her past, or her eyes, and carefully avoided talks of the train graveyard memes, although she suspected that Georgie had directly asked them.

Her last session with her therapist had been a little bittersweet. They’d met weekly, then bi-monthly, for three years. She’d never switched, lucky enough to have found a therapist that worked for her on the first try. She hadn’t yet decided if she wanted to find a new one after moving. She was doing better.

Looking back, she wondered if she could have ever dreamed of this, back when it all started. Everything used to be so different, her situation so inescapable. She’d hoped of getting better, a little, but was convinced it could never happen. It wasn’t all picture perfect, even after all this time, but it certainly was better. And getting better every day.

She leaned her head on the car window, feeling the vibration spread from her forehead to the rest of her body, listening to her friends passionately talk about pasta types, and she smiled, feeling herself slowly fall asleep.

When they reached the house, Andy gently nudged her awake, muttering something about Toni having taken her metal CDs with her to Australia, and Melanie smiled, pushing the door open and tumbling out of the car. She stretched, the tension leaving her muscles progressively, knees aching and bones grinding.

The place smelled faintly like the sea. They were a little far from the shore, but a strong wind blew, probably from the south. The atmosphere was charged, in the wonderful way it always was when a summer storm was building up, just on the verge of bursting. Melanie loved these moments.

Georgie stepped out of the rental truck and walked up to her, taking her hand gently, wordlessly.

“Home,” she said fondly.

“Home,” Melanie repeated, and she squeezed Georgie’s hand lightly.

It took some time to unload everything. The house didn’t smell like home yet, but Melanie made tea as soon as the kettle was brought out, slow and hesitant in the unfamiliar kitchen. She walked out with a tray of cups and a steaming teapot, making her way to the living room where she knew the others had already placed the others.

“There are boxes everywhere,” Georgie grumbled, “ **give me that** .”

She took the tray and placed it on the table, pushing the boxes out of the way with her feet.

“Guest room furniture is all set,” Andy informed them as she came down the stairs with the others.

“Tea’s ready,” Melanie smiled, and the others sighed with contentment, taking their seats around the table.

Georgie leaned against her shoulder, linking their hands under the table. Their friends were talking about some book they’d all read. One of them said he’d heard that an actor he liked was recording the audiobook. Melanie took note of the title.

They walked out in the evening, refusing their offer to stay the night, and soon enough Melanie and Georgie were alone.

They wrapped their arms around each other, moving from one foot to the other together, heads buried in shoulders.

“I love you,” Melanie murmured. She never got tired of saying it.

“I love you,” Georgie answered. She never got tired of hearing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this could do with a lot of editing but it's 11 pm and i have to get up tomorrow. homophobia, i know. c'est la vie. eh. eyes are closing without my consent it's time to post and sleep


	28. Do I have to do everything here?

Melanie woke up on their first morning in their new home to the sound of rolling thunder and beating rain. They let themselves be comforted by the sound, learning the way the wind brushed through the trees and between the tiles, so different from the way it did in their London flat, yet familiar all the same.

They reached for Georgie, who had rolled away in his sleep, and slid an arm against his waist, settling their head on the back of his neck and breathing out deeply, content.

Georgie’s chest rose and fell to a slow, regular rhythm, and Melanie’s breathing adjusted to it as they slowly fell back to sleep.

When they woke up again, the rain was no longer falling, leaving an empty silence, only broken by the occasional bird. Georgie had turned around, and Melanie’s head was settled comfortably in the crook of his neck. They unfolded an arm to rest it on his back, pulling him closer.

“Time to get up,” Georgie murmured, and Melanie sleepily hummed their disapproval, holding him closer.

He sighed lightly, pressing a soft kiss to the top of their head, and carried them out of bed. It had been a while since they’d done this. Melanie, out of sympathy for his back, most often got out of bed on their own, a little later. Tea would always be ready when they got downstairs, covered, to keep the heat in.

Georgie put them down on the kitchen counter. It was a little lower than it was in their London flat, and Melanie yelped in panic when they didn’t feel it under their body at the usual height, thinking for a moment that Georgie would simply put them down on the floor. He laughed at that, planting a kiss on their cheek, just next to their ear.

They spent the morning unpacking boxes. Or rather, Georgie unpacked and Melanie got distracted halfway through boxes, dancing lazily to the music.

“ **Do I have to do everything here?** ” Georgie asked, mock frustration in his voice, as Melanie moved their arms in weird ways to a dynamic guitar solo, muttering ‘alien dance’ over and over again.

They sighed exaggeratedly, opening another box of clothes to put them in the closet.

“I see you don’t appreciate my graceful alien dance,” they said.

“I appreciate it very much, but I would also appreciate it if we could get everything done early so we can sit down on the couch and cuddle afterwards.”

“You make good points,” Melanie conceded, placing shirts back on their hangers.

When they were done, it was already late in the afternoon. Melanie let themselves fall on the sofa and Georgie went into the kitchen to make tea. When he came back, he laid down on the couch, pulling Melanie on top of him, holding them close.

They peppered a few kisses on the side of his jaw before closing their eyes and resting their head on his chest. They both sighed in content.

“Don’t fall asleep just yet,” Georgie murmured, “we have a bed to fall asleep in.”

“But I do have a girlfriend to fall asleep on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again a short chapter just as i fall asleep. last chapters to come earlier as lockdown starts again and i am requested at my parents, where i pretend to be a responsible person who doesn't stay up all night


	29. back up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> self-indulgent chatfic chapter?  
> so uhhhh ao3 won't load the format right on my phone and it's too late to get my laptop. so each thread is between one of these big lines. inside a thread, there will be a space before an answer and a no space before the answer to answers. does this make sense? no. will i try and edit it on laptop some other day? maybe. good luck to those who read this before then  
> edit: i have tried to make the big spaces but ao3 said no. i can't complain, it makes up for its tagging system

**WhatTheGhost** @whattheghostpodcast

> Last episode of #WhatTheGhostPodcast is up now! It's been a few great years but the journey has reached its end. Thanks to everyone who has been with us for this incredible adventure! Much love!

**WhatTheGhost** @whattheghostpodcast

But not to worry! @ghostgeorgie and @melenbyking have plans for the future 👀👀 Stay tuned for some spooooky updates!

**GeorgieBarker** @ghostgeorgie

they grow up so fast! after years and years my baby podcast has grown so much! and now im letting it go. excited for this new phase in my life!

**MelanieKing** @melenbyking

too pretty to cry but i will shed a tear over this. can't believe i went from greatest fan to girlfriend of @ghostgeorgie to co-host! im extra ready for more ghostly shenanigans! see you all there!

 **GeorgieBarker** @ghostgeorgie

cant believe i ever did this show without you! you're the bestest co-host i could have dreamed for <3

**AndyCaine** @andyyyyyyyyyyyyyuuuyu

I can't believe it's over! Really glad we got to collab that one time, I hope you'll have a little place for me in this new project of yours ;)

 **MelanieBarker** @melenbyking

we Just got off the phone,,,,,, the public will Know,,,,, this top secret information,,,,,,, ,it's getting Out,,,, how could you do this,,,

* * *

 **WhatTheGhost** @whattheghostpodcast

Thank you so much to everyone who nominated us for the comedy award! @melenbyking how does it feel to be the funniest person alive

**MelanieKing** @melenbyking

we wouldn't be here if you weren't so easy to make fun of! comedy needs something to hold onto, and you are just ridiculous enough

 **ElvisMason** @deadghostclown777

lol you're literally not even funny. stop being mean to georgie she deserves better than you bitch

 **MelanieKing** @melenbyking

sure kid

 **ElvisMason** @deadghostclown777

dont fucking call me kid im 14. im old enough to know you're a bitch and georgie deserves better

 **MelanieKing** @melenbyking

@ghostgeorgie back up! child knows swear words what can i possibly do

* * *

 **GeorgieBarker** @ghostgeorgie

Daily reminder that im very in love with @melenbygeorgie. they're a bitch and i love them so much

**MelanieKing** @melenbyking

careful you're going to anger 14 yo dead ghost clowns

 **GeorgieBarker** @ghostgeorgie

there are many dead, clowns and ghosts we could be working on right now if you weren't on your phone

* * *

 **GhostHuntUk** @ghosthuntuk

We know this account has been dead for years but today is the five-year anniversary of our collaboration with @whattheghostpodcast, and although much has changed since then, we're really excited for everything all of us have for the future!

**ToniFarronBridge** @punkghosthunter

Oh if we had known back then that it would lead to a blossoming romance (we did know. @melenbyking was trying very hard not to get a crush on @ghostgeorgie, but @andyyyyyyyyyyyyyuuuyu and i knew the truth

 **MelanieKing** @melenbyking

can you really blame me though

 **CamillaVanilla** @prettyblondeghost

no one can blame you, georgie is just that gorgeous

 **MelanieKing** @melenbyking

you get me

**WhatTheGhost** @whattheghostpodcast

Good moments to look back on. Can't believe it's been that long! How many of you guys were already there with us back then?

* * *

 **GeorgieBarker** @ghostgeorgie

happy 30th birthday to my favourite @melenbyking! how does it feel to be old?

 **MelanieKing** @melenbyking

you have the honour of hearing my joints protesting all day long, and i hear yours too. it's coming for you. just because you're a small child doesn't mean your 30th birthday isn't around the corner (*cough* in two months *cough*)

 **GeorgieBarker** @ghostgeorgie

sshhhhhh. you are the elderly

 **MelanieKing** @melenbyking

a quite impressive age gap! are you dating me for my fortune? am i your sugar daddy? are you waiting for me to die off so you can get all my fortune and go marry a young elegant man out there and be rich and in love

 **GeorgieBarker** @ghostgeorgie

gasp, you saw right through me


	30. Just say it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is this? a chapter i started writing before it was too late? that reached 1k? waw, so much time ahead of me tonight completely available for editing. haha. no. you're getting this. it has been proofread a grand total of two (2) times. if you're still here at this point you're probably used to much worse anyway. enjoy

It had been three years since they’d started dating. It felt both like forever and no time at all. Maybe, Melanie thought, it felt so short because it felt like it was just the beginning. The past three years had been busy, and everything had changed so much that ‘before’ seemed decades away.

Yet, as they walked along the shore on their anniversary, hand in hand and necks buried in scarves to fight the strong early autumn wind, Melanie felt like they still had decades to go, with Georgie by their side. They’d talked about their future, and they agreed on it. Living together, growing old together, felt like the obvious their life should take, and they were both happy about it.

The smell of the sea was still as comforting as it was when they first moved in. It brought up long-lost childhood memories of family holidays, carefree and innocent, of running across the beach and into the freezing waters of the Channel, screaming from the excitement and surprise and the thrill of discoveries. They missed being a child, sometimes.

Melanie had let their hair grow long, again. There were still traces of blue on the ends, but the thick, dark waves of their hair once again fell to the middle of their back, flying rather inelegantly in the wind, hitting their face and reaching Georgie’s, making them complain and laugh, giving her an excuse to tuck strands of hair in their beanie, her hands lingering along the curve of their jaw.

They would steal kisses, from time to time. The beach was empty except for them, silent and peaceful.

“I love you” Geogie said at some point, apropos of nothing, squeezing Melanie’s hand gently.

They smiled, bumping their shoulder against her lightly.

“Love you too,” they answered, just like they always did.

“I think it’s pretty sexy of us that we’re going to grow old together,” she continued.

Melanie smiled, chuckling slightly.

“Sexy indeed,” they said, “I can’t imagine being old without you. Now that would be unsexy.”

The conversation halted, and Georgie’s hand tensed in theirs, her breathing uneven as she tried and failed to start a new sentence.

“I probably should say more words right now but,” Georgie finally started, “but, hang on.”

She stopped walking, tugging on Melanie’s arm until they stopped too and turned to them, close enough to feel their warmth. Then Georgie let go of their hand, and they felt her presence move away.

“What the fuck are you doing,” they whined under their breath.

“I’m getting down on one knee for you.”

There was a moment, in Melanie’s brain, before it registered what they’d just heard, and a moment after, when it simply refused to properly process the information. They knew what it meant, they understood the implications, but they could only let out a strangled, vaguely inhuman sound, somewhere between a gasp, a laugh and beginnings of several aborted sentences, before Georgie was talking again.

“I know we’ve already talked about marriage before, so it’s not exactly a big surprise or anything, but,” she took a deep breath, “we’ve been together for three years, and it’s been great, and I want it to be forever, and you said you do too, and I thought, you know.

‘I’m not very verbose, so it’s not a grand proposal, and there isn’t anyone here to take pictures from Instagram or whatever bullshit people do these days. It’s just you and me, in the middle of nowhere, and we’re freezing our balls off but I’d stay here forever if it meant you were here too.”

Melanie let out a laugh, and it kind of sounded like a sob, but they weren’t crying. They were not.

“ **Just say it.** ”

“Impatient much,” Georgie mumbled, voice trembling slightly, “but, yeah, um, Melanie King, will you marry me?”

“Of course I will, dumbass,” Melanie answered, and maybe they were crying a little, “now come back up and kiss me.”

Georgie did, bumping their noses together in her eagerness. Their lips were cold, but they kept kissing until they weren’t, slow and tender, and they had to stop a few times so Melanie could brush away the tears from their cheeks.

“I picked a really nice ring,” Georgie said after a while, pulling away just enough to talk, her breath still warm against Melanie’s lips.

They opened a little box and placed it in their hands. Melanie took the ring, exploring the way it felt. It was rather large, but not too much so, complementing their look while remaining just on the right side of fancy.

“Promise it’s not a tacky colour?” they asked, trying to control the wave of emotion washing over them.

“It’s dark silver,” Georgie replied, “and the middle is rose-gold. It’s really pretty. If you don’t like it, we can get another one, I don’t-”

“It’s perfect,” Melanie interrupted her, unable to keep their voice from trembling a little, “so are you going to put it on my finger or what?”

Georgie did, gently, and Melanie moved their hands around, stretching it, running their thumb over the ring, getting used to the feeling of metal against their skin. They wore rings almost every day, but only on their thumbs and index fingers, keeping their ring finger free. They smiled, wide and toothy, resisting the urge to giggle in a truly undignified manner.

“I wouldn’t have considered you the marrying sort, back when we met,” Georgie said softly.

“I didn’t either,” Melanie answered, placing their left hand on Georgie’s cheek, “but I didn’t know you yet.”

Georgie laughed lightly, happily, and pulled Melanie in her arms. They wrapped in their arms around her, burying their head in her shoulder with a contented sigh.

“Love you love you,” they mumbled, and Georgie hummed softly, resting her cheek on the top of their head.

“So now we have a wedding to plan,” she said, and Melanie smiled.

“We must have people fill a questionnaire in the end to know which one of us looks the hottest.”


	31. I trust you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is,,,,, the last chapter,,,,, can't believe i actually did the whole thing and never gave up, even when i had to stay up past the bedtime that i set for myself and tried to believe i would keep because im a "responsible person"  
> it's been fun to write though. big thanks to everyone who has kept reading up until now, extra kudos for the people who left kudos and comments, you guys get rights  
> hello to the people who are reading this in the Future! reading chaptered fics when they're over is easier, i know, i know. but you can still leave a comment even if there are no more chapters to be expected and no writer to encourage,,,, comments are always welcome  
> enjoy!

Melanie woke up to the gentle tapping of rain on the roof.

They’d moved a few times over the years, going from little house to little house, always close to the sea, the wind following them, whispering in the trees and howling under the roof tiles and hissing under the windowsills and curling around them as they walked, comforting in the constance of its presence.

She breathed in deeply, pushing the fog of sleep out of her brain, her joints cracking as she stretched, and she pushed herself out of her bed, shivering as her feet touched the cool wooden floor. Georgie was already up, of course, as always, probably with the goats.

Melanie worried, sometimes, that Georgie would get hurt, all alone at the other side of the garden, doing things they really shouldn’t be doing at their age, and that she wouldn’t know, wouldn’t hear them call for help. Georgie always brushed her worries off with a laugh.

“I’m still going strong,” they would chuckle, “still in my prime! Look at these arms!”

Melanie would sigh lightly, giving a squeeze to her wife’s biceps and nodding in satisfaction.

“You still pass the vibe checks,” she would hum.

She still worried, though, and took the long cobblestone path going through their vegetable patch, lovingly maintained, all the way to the enclosure where they kept their animals, in the middle of all their fruit trees. Years and years ago, Melanie wouldn’t have considered herself the kind of person who would want a life like that, but she was satisfied with the way her life was.

Georgie greeted her brightly, unharmed, and they handed her a basket full of eggs.

“I’m done with everything,” they said, hooking an arm around hers, “let’s get breakfast.”

They walked back towards the house, leaving the french doors open, letting the warming spring air in. They cooked breakfast and ate in silence, listening to the radio.

“Oh,” Georgie whispered softly when it started announcing the weather, “I can’t believe I almost forgot, it’s already the 28th.”

Melanie smiled sweetly, reaching for their hand, brushing a thumb over their knuckles.

“April 28th, 2073,” she murmured, “time really does fly.”

“Fifty years of having to deal with your antics,” Georgie chuckled, “or, well, more than that, but fifty years since I signed a paper promising that I would forever.”

“You’ve been good at keeping promises.”

“You gave me your trust, I wasn’t going to break it.”

Melanie remembered their wedding day, fifty years before. Not so clearly after all this time, but she remembered the ceremony, the party, the mix of excitement and stress and happiness. She remembered the way Georgie’s hand had felt, laying on the small of her as they slow-danced, late in the night, or maybe early in the morning, after almost everyone else had left.

“Nothing can keep us apart now,” Georgie had whispered then, “the law forbids it now. I’ll be here for you always.”

“I trust you,” Melanie had murmured in the crook of their neck.

Her hair had greyed, since then. She had cut and dyed it and let it grow again a few more times, but around fifty she’d stopped, letting it flow down her back or typing it up. It had started greying early, perhaps because of all the stress in her late twenties, but Georgie said it looked nice on her, and she trusted them.

Georgie would often braid it. They’d taken to trying new types of braids, claiming that, since they shaved their own hair and had nothing to play with, they had a right to their wife’s hair. Melanie didn’t mind, relaxing in their gentle touch, their fingers brushing on her temples and on the back of her head.

They’d put flowers in her hair, sometimes. Their previous neighbour had loved it, always talking about the way her husband used to do that too, before he died. She’d passed away too, a couple of years earlier. Melanie missed her, sometimes. She was just the first in the list of funerals, promising to get longer.

Andy would be gone soon, they all knew, her health gradually deteriorating. She said it was fine. She’d lived a happy life. She missed her wife. Maeve told her to keep going, probably afraid that her grief after Toni’s death could make her less afraid too, that she’d miss them so much she wouldn’t mind dying.

Melanie thought about the Institute, sometimes, about Sasha and Tim, who hadn’t had the chance to grow old. She’d been so convinced, back then, that she would have the same end. After over fifty years, growing old, alive, human and free, didn’t feel so much like a stolen gift.

Georgie and Melanie took care of themselves. They exercised, ate healthy food from their garden, kept warm in the winter, although it didn’t get cold as much as it used to, even in the coldest months.

They had a party planned for the following week-end, to celebrate their anniversary. They’d invited their friends, some of them with children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They would play music from their youth, that the youngest would call old, and music they’d found old too, even in their own youth. Melanie hadn’t really realised, when she was a teenager, that one Black Eyed Peas and Ke$ha and The Neighbourhood would be old people music.

They didn’t have children of their own. Goats and chicken were enough. The Admiral had died, decades ago, and they’d never had the heart to replace him, no matter how much they missed having a cat.

They’d adopted the neighbour’s dog after her death. He was old and tired, spending most of his time laying by the fireplace, holding an old jumper that his previous owner used to wear. He missed her. Melanie understood. She missed her too.

She wondered if he realised, too, how much death could take away, when the jumper had stopped smelling like its owner. When the last trace of her smell had been gone, forever.

Georgie was proud of their garden. They spent a good part of each day working in it, caring for it, and brought back the vegetables and fruits for Melanie to cook into pies and jams and compotes and carefully pack in ziplock bags in the freezer.

A neighbour of theirs, a man in his early sixties, still had a car, and he bought groceries for them in exchange for some of their vegetables or eggs. Another one bought their goat milk and apples to make cheese and cider. They liked life like that.

Georgie sat on the couch at the end of the day, sighing loudly as their back protested. Melanie laid across the sofa, her head on their lap, and they freed her hair from the braid gently, running their hand through the curls and massaging her head lightly. She sighed with content.

“Love you,” she mumbled as they turned on the radio.

“Love you,” they answered softly.

Things were fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they! are! happy! they grew old and nothing Bad happened to them and they're alright  
> what they Deserve  
> mr johnny sims said no happy ending and no happy anything in this horror podcast and i said i can't hear you <3 apocalypse who? they're living their best life <3

**Author's Note:**

> big thanks to november who encouraged me to write this and read over the first few chapters! ily


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